Grave to cradle
by SDoradus
Summary: Arc 3 of 8: The Alliance recovers its breath. An ME Fic written a year before the "Mass Effect: Andromeda" trailer. The last arc of "Gone with the Sun" has survivors heading for Andromeda.
1. Briefing for a descent

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

\- follows Arc 2, "Queen's Gambit" (under s/11382885/1/)

Chapter 19 **Briefing for a descent**

* * *

 _Dreamtime_

That night pain relented, and the usual dream did not come. Instead, he found himself back on the Citadel, after Udina's coup, vexed, hurting, and frankly pissed with himself for letting that bastard with the tricked-out sword go. This was not necessarily an improvement. Better when he didn't know he was dreaming. He had to relive too many close calls, especially that quasi-invisible phantom he'd detected at the last second, and that damned Atlas. Why had there been no expression on the Phantom's face when she died?

Bailey had said to see a dying Thane. Hands were shaking, but before he could recover on the _Normandy_ , he had to check on Thane. Actually what he wanted to do was _hit_ someone responsible, wring the impurities from life. Udina didn't count, not least because he wasn't quite certain Udina was in his right mind. Besides, if he hadn't popped him, Ashley surely would have, it was heading that way after she worked it out.

Down again to a choice between stopping Udina and stopping Kai Leng. No choice at all really, if he was going to live with himself afterwards. If afterwards existed.

At least Thane had left Kolyat to carry on. Unexpectedly there welled up a profound longing for… _something_. Peace? Comfort, shelter?

Something else.

Putting Leng down would have been ideal, but that catharsis had been denied him. Even there he hadn't done his job right. What they really needed was Udina alive. Such a defection was incomprehensible. He might have been indoctrinated, but where could such indoctrination have come from? Udina hadn't spent significant time near any kind of Reaper artifact.

Shepard skated around Udina's betrayal, viewing it from every angle. It seemed less like indoctrination and more an act of desperation by a man who thought that he, and only he, knew how to proceed in the face of the threat. That struck too close to home. Did this have to be yet another catalog of failures to keep the peace? Thane had been doing for psychopaths like Leng, error-free, since before Shepard was born.

 _That's disturbing_. It should be satisfying, but: _Leng reminded the Illusive Man of me_. He, Shepard, was maximum boss. Leng did for Thane, and Shepard did for Leng. Yet, in truth, despite his best efforts, in the end Shepard brought not peace but another sword.

Live by the sword, die by electro-optical spike. Shepard supposed he was lucky. He'd managed to kill himself, frustrating the pattern. If this was hell, suicide might be why he was in it. Even if the point was not to die but to save his world. Maybe everyone had to spend a season in hell? _Stuff_ that _for a game of soldier_ s. Better when he was sure he was dreaming.

In that way dreams have, Shepard sègued into the moment where he closed Thane's eyes. _Another friend gone._ And again, he hadn't been able to properly say goodbye.

Thane, he recalled, had managed to say goodbye to _him._

 _Ka mate_

 _Kolyat's reading_. It was indistinct, like hearing with cotton wool. Pumped full of medication? _Is that why I can't wake up?_ _Dream_ , something in Shepard reflected, _if you're dreaming at least you can't be dead_. But this dream didn't follow the script. As a night mist froze all around them, Thane slipped off the gurney, stood before him.

"Commander. Do not trouble yourself with Leng. Had you not ministered to him, the Illusive Man would have. That one turns on all his servants, in the end."

"That's all very well Thane," (The wall of mist behind Thane began to glow.)  
"– but I get the impression the way of Leng's going will be a problem down the line for me." (There was day behind Thane. A boat, a river, down to a sunlit sea. He could see through the boat, and the female Drell, but not the river.)

"No. You're not looking at this from the right side of time's wall. You will solve his problem. You _have_ solved his problem. This cycle will end and you have ended it."

"And it ended me. Again. Or am I sleeping? Last time there was nothing like this."

" _M_ _y_ time came, Shepard. You still have your people, believing you watch over them. They've had a bad time, want you back, would share your fate if they could, if they knew where you are. Their world still tugs at their Shepard. _Yours_ is a reset, a rest, a form of sleep… one with no dreams is coming. We will watch for Miranda, close to the evil that took Leng. Ashley too, after she walks your path. A girl who thinks she failed you. Even Liara."

"Reset? Rest? _Death?_ " The world was pixelating, losing definition.

"You still have things to do. Look to them. Look to your friends, all of them."

"Not my enemies?"

"Leng is no longer your concern, or mine." Thane turned slowly. Left for the boat, holding the hand of the other. _Better say it while I still can_ :

"Goodbye Thane." Thane turned, waved; then he, the boat, the river all disappeared within a granular mist.

 _The Abyss_

Shepard turned, but the hospital door wasn't there, he was in the docks. Orbit nightside. _Strange. You're losing it even in your dreams, old man. What's left here?_

The walls were shattered, the roof mostly gone, you could see the stars. Yet there were people walking around the debris, or through it. Couldn't spare the energy to ponder the anomaly. His head was still stuffed with cotton wool dream stuff. He stopped, recalling he was to meet someone else. _Who_ is here?

Then the sundering dark took the sky, the stars, the planet, the docks, and himself.

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #20, "Run silent, run deep_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Friday, July 17, 2015


	2. Run silent, run deep

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 20 **Run silent, run deep**

* * *

 _Each c_ _onsent a lucky gasp for life_

How could she have allowed this to happen? She tossed and turned, wildly wondered where she could run, imagined ways of eliminating the alien growth within. She couldn't go through with it. She couldn't _not_ go through with it. Where could she run? How had she come to this? _What_ had she been _thinking_?

Eventually, so very late, she stopped thinking.

That night she dreamed of meeting him, as they had been after the Cerberus coup. Strangely, Harkin's disguise and fake ID had worked. Very few refugees knew her real name, and they were able to cultivate a remarkable blindness among the others, so she wasn't hiding any more; C-Sec was back in charge. Still, she kept seeing 'ghosts' – a glance at a person on the street might show a familiar face, a friend on the lam from Cerberus, but looking twice would reveal a total stranger. That wore her down.

Except once or twice a week it really would be an old friend and they would cry on each other's shoulders, then quickly realize they were dangerous to each other and separate again. Some cells she sent Shep's way, one to Chakwas, others to see Bailey, a few to Zaeed – the angrier ones with the bad implants. He'd compliment her complement, saying they were his best recruits ever.

She didn't quite know how to take that.

But she would return home every night and delve into her burrow among her refugees, who never failed her. Even the batarians appreciated her, and not just the slaves. She kept going, for it was something she could do. She knew people, and had a knack for getting across what needed to be done.

Especially the food. It had been getting scarce, but mainly because of bureaucracy, the automated farm freighters were still getting through the relays. It just wasn't moving off the docks till she got involved. That had been a scary time. It turned out some people very much wanted the rations to stay on the docks, especially the _laevo_ -rations. She had spoken to Garrus. Garrus had spoken to Bailey. She didn't want to appear on Bailey's radar, but had spoken to Massani, then somehow Bailey had known where to find her. Massani had plotted and schemed with Garrus, and both had disappeared for a couple of days. Then they came back, and magically some other people did not.

She'd felt bad about that. She had only wanted the obstructions and threats to stop; now she obscurely felt guilty. Massani just kidded her about it. Garrus wouldn't say anything to her at all, but Chloe – much braver than she – asked him sternly " _how many of the_ _toads_ _did_ _you bump off?_ " He'd languorously sipped his brandy and said " _An elegant sufficiency, dear heart._ " Gentlemen apparently didn't talk about the ladies they lived with or the men they'd offed. So now they lived with occasional rumblings from people who resented them. But it wasn't anything like as bad as literally hiding in dark corners and keeper tunnels from white-and-gold Cerberus troops. Who'd had a little list. Of people who never would be missed.

Which she was on. She was still scared to death most days.

Nightmares persisted. Being back in the pod.

 _I see the Sun_

Shepard returned. _Come back_ , he'd asked earlier. Not in her capacity as refugee liaison; his old crew was gone, he wanted his yeoman. That was too much and she had work to do, but this time he really was looking for _her_. Checking on _her_. Couldn't believe it, but she felt a sun blossoming inside.

He looked alarmingly unwell, though. Nothing physical, something around the eyes. Caught in some web, turned in on himself. _W_ _ho_ _'s_ _looking after_ _you?_ – fishing.

 _Vanished_. So, he had no-one. Again.

She couldn't go back to that ship. Even now. Still, sufficient unto the day… _T_ _alk with me._

They retreated to the containerized burrow, knowing how it must end but somehow not able to stop themselves. And once in her private space, they held each other, and kissed, and she cried, and he had some tears too. So she told him her most evil memories, which had become her nightmares, and he told her about Mordin, and Thane, and being powerless to stop their deaths.

She knew all about being powerless, and kissed him, longer, harder. He kissed away the salty tears from her eyes, her face, her neck… " _Dear God, but I missed you so_ ," and she burst in tears again, that meant another kiss. "Shep–"

"– _Shh. Later_." And it all went completely out of control then, dear God but he was _strong_ , and an orange mist had descended over the memory, but she could dream of them collapsed entwined together, for some seconds simply panting and staring at each other, till the panting slowed to breathing and he began to speak; " _Kelly_ –"

She tried to shut him up, winding her legs around. Still: "If I've done you harm–"

"Listen at you."

"But–" (Finger against his lips, now.)

"I've been at your disposition for some time, you silly man. Shush."

"You're your own–" Index finger against his lips, again.

"– said the man who rescued the demoiselle from the dragon. _Shepard_. If you hadn't risked everything for us, and in particular for me, I'd be reaper paste. I've loved you since I can't remember when, and I owe you more than a few abrasions will ever repay."

Whereupon they spoke at length about how he was not an evil cradle-robber, and she was no schoolgirl (although it hadn't actually been all that long). Together they showered then twined together again on the bed and spoke a long, long time, about dreams, and death, and love, and life. Popping her cherry figured just a little bit.

"One more thing." She grinned at him; his cobwebs were blown. _Mission accomplished_. So were hers; _collateral damage_.

He stirred: "– What?"

"It's been more than an hour. Kiss me, and do it again."

So he did.

Then she woke.

Why had she thought running was a good idea?

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #21, "Risky Business_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Saturday, July 18, 2015


	3. Risky Business

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 21 **Risky Business**

* * *

 _Take the long way home_

There were fifteen in the newly-arrived flotilla; eight frigates, five cruisers, a dreadnought, and the huge dry dock, doing duty as a freighter. Garrus contemplated the loading schedule in the fading Tasmanian sunlight.

"This won't do, Primarch, Forget the dreadnought. It's time to take a risk and replace it with two freighters."

"You're assuming there's no risk of pirates down the Palaven chain."

"The Salarians will be heading for the Annos Basin in cold sleep with only automated systems and _one_ watch crew rotated every year. You don't think they have a handle on the risk? _We_ are pushing towards the Apien Crest, directly opposite the Attican Traverse never mind the Terminus systems, and there's no way a pirate fleet will catch up on FTL."

"So what do we do with the dreadnought?"

"Start a conversion to fighter and frigate carrier. Duplicate some of the dry dock's fabrication capability."

"Seriously?"

"Two reasons. The original idea of a single string of conduits in a loop doesn't do the idea justice. There needs to be the ability to quickly explore planets off to one side, so for every conduit relay on the main line, there should be three or four going off at right angles."

"For land vehicle exploration?"

"Perhaps. Also, we really need the big dock here. Bear in mind that the Conduit team's third prototype can just barely accommodate an Alliance-issue Trident fighter, or a Kodiak shuttle. In nine weeks we'll be starting to produce the fourth generation in volume, a frigate's still too big but we should be able to get our gunships through."

"So we'll have a space link capability behind us back to Earth."

"Yes, Primarch. A limited one, but we should be able to fabricate conduits from local material, on board a converted dreadnought. Our generation-zero conduits had a range of only three hundred parsecs. We are doing better now, but still only at four hundred and eighty parsecs. On the other hand that represents an improvement of two orders of magnitude over the speed of FTL travel."

"Very well. If we downconvert a dreadnought, we should arrange for evacuation pods to be able to pass through too. If we can't fight what we encounter, we must run from it."

"That's wise, sir, but the risk is small. After the trashing of so much tech – and pirates don't keep shielded spares like properly organized warships – a frigate will be essentially invulnerable to anything fast enough to catch it."

"Very well. Any more bright ideas, Vakarian? People are already muttering about unproven brainstorms."

Despite the clear warning, Garrus couldn't help himself.

"Replace the fighter and frigate FTL cores with one of our own design that can disengage safeties. Equip with a VI and you have a an impact kinetic weapon that, given time and enough Casimir feed, would rival an asteroid hit."

"Preposterous."

Garrus sighed.

"Primarch, Tali tells me the humans are already discussing this in their research stations, and the general tenor is not _can_ we do this but _how quickly_. Because there's precedent, which _we_ set!"

"The Taetrus rebels. Yet, there has been nothing in the intelligence briefings."

" _Riiiight_. If you need motivation, just bear in mind that humans appear to have _no_ qualms about trying something new. Like opening strange mass relays to Spirits know where. We will be crossing space that we never opened relays to. What will we meet?"

Victus contemplated his general's stony gaze. "Alright, Vakarian. I'll take a chance on needing human help. And on you and your quarian Admiral. When is she leaving?"

"She isn't. Three days ago they recovered a frigate with a working QEC pair back to Rannoch."

"Which means?"

"She can actually perform admiralty functions here on Earth. She can't do that in transit. She's staying here, for now."

"Oh. I'm happy to hear that. She has been a friend, and a useful one."

 _You think_ you're _happy_ , thought Garrus, but carefully introduced the next item on the agenda, more news from Rannoch.

"Primarch, we need to bring this to the attention of Hackett and his geth."

"Oh?"

"The news isn't awful for Earth, but it's pretty bad. _Every single_ geth hardware platform on Rannoch collapsed after the passage of the red flash."

"The geth are _extinct?!"_

"That's the report. And there has hardly been any flicker of their existence further afield."

"Nothing at all?"

"Just three, Primarch, _three_ geth distress signals have been relayed by QEC, several hundred parsecs apart. It's going to take decades to recover them, not least because something like seventy percent of the quarian ground and fleet installations have been knocked out, they're struggling but so far improvisation has held starvation and mass deaths at bay."

" _Spirits_. Wait. Hackett's platoon of geth Primes–"

"– are intact, yes. Because he took shelter behind Arcturus. Also the Primes' combat ships. But those form the only substantial geth population we know of."

"I will inform the Council. You tell Hackett, first."

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #22, "Knot theory_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Saturday, July 18, 2015


	4. Knot theory

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 22 **Knot theory**

* * *

 _Recognition problem_

"… but the captain would not lay a beacon."

Tevos had read carefully the Justicar's summary as she listened to a verbal description of events leading up to the discovery of Ardat-Yakshi in the vicinity of Arcturus. Now she looked up.

"Justicar, what do you expect me to do about it?"

"Take the _Destiny Ascension_ , or some suitable force, and slag the planet when you find it. Or wipe out each individual monster."

"Out of the question, from every perspective. There are several _thousand_ worlds within the search parameters. We cannot possibly spare the troops for individual action. We can't justify the destruction of a garden biosphere. And above all it would be mad folly to take any such precipitate action in the back yard of technologically advanced barbarians. We are currently not merely at peace, but actively friendly with these folk, and they have offered us sanctuary."

"Councilor, I guarantee you the first action of the Salarians will be to find some way to exploit these beings against both ourselves and every other race. And they will undoubtedly find some way to fail spectacularly in ways that will make the Krogan rebellions look like mild family discipline."

Tevos rubbed her forehead. "You make a good case. But it is _still_ quite simply beyond acceptable behavior. I swear, humans can make the _batarians_ look civilised, when it comes to transgressing territorial boundaries, and we – the whole asari race – simply can't afford to alienate them at this point. Besides, it seems to me that in your zeal you have missed an essential point."

"And what might that be?"

"You are assuming the Salarians will get wind of this before we can find some resolution morally acceptable to both ourselves and the humans. And if they did get wind of it, that they would follow through."

"Why would they not?

"Because the only salarian crewmember on that ship died on Tuchanka. The only significant human officer with close contacts to other salarians of consequence, is dead. The humans have not been impressed with the behavior of the current dalatrass, and other salarian power centres are scrambling to mitigate her impact. The _turians_ have closer and more confidential relationships with the human power structures, at present, and we are a close second, thanks to yourself and Benezia's daughter."

"Liara. Yes. She was helpful in exploring the possible threats. She politely declined to discuss sanctions though, deferring to you."

"Entirely proper. Justicar, I decline to approve any such action as you propose. And yet it would be foolish to discount the threat. We do have a few years. Those creatures have been isolated there for millenia. Please consider my counter-proposal. You should travel to Thessia to meet with the republic archons."

"The old inter-republic institutions have been shattered."

"That is another reason for you to go. You represent legitimate authority, and I will reinforce that with this warrant." Tevos handed over a coppery hologram.

The VI threaded within the digital ink detected two viewers of facial markings indicating two different asari dialects, and for a second flickered between the two, until it properly divided the fields of view. Finally it settled on reflection interference patterns for two perspectives with each dialect displayed to the corresponding pair of eyes. Samara saw to her astonishment that she was now a council plenipotentiary to the republics.

"Councilor, I am no diplomat."

"I seem to recall a human named Shepard saying something similar."

" _He_ is no longer with us. I think. Treading his path is not lightly undertaken."

 _Not invariant_

"What do you mean, 'I think?'"

"The current captain of the Normandy refuses to inscribe his name on a memorial until his official status changes from MIA, " _Missing In Action_ " to KIA, " _Killed In Action_."

"I see. Perfectly understandable though. There was some controversy the first time he died, in 2183, when his Spectre status was revoked as normal after death. That was deeply embarrassing when he turned up two years later. So that's just normal circumspection."

"Madame Councilor, I'm not saying you're wrong. The Alliance authorities had declared Shepard killed in action later that year. There's no doubt about it, he was clinically dead. If the Council was in a difficult position, Shepard's legal situation was impossible for the Alliance authorities. Human civilization is not so long-lived that they have had precedent for such a thing –"

"– I prefer your Code, Justicar. You would have no such problem."

"No, madam, but on the other hand the Code does not provide for a trial at assizes, either. The Judge Advocate General couldn't charge him with any formal war crime for example. First, his genetic identity didn't establish that the mind in the body was guilty – a point highlighted by the recent Shepard Clone incident."

"Oh, yes. I do recall, that was fascinating for all asari lawyers. Civil trial for damages, who would pay?"

"Indeed. Or criminal trial for murder, who would receive penalty?"

"Fine. The clone was Shepard genetically, but Shepard was not the clone, so they could establish _actus reus_ but not _mens rea,_ I do take your point."

"Thank you Councilor, I had a professional interest in this too. Second there was black-letter law, statutes on the books which in effect prevent dead people being charged with a crime – the dead person would have to be triable in court under that identity, the procedural issues were insurmountable, and so forth."

"One reason your Code is not big on procedural issues, I dare say."

 _Re_ _idemeister_

"It could have been worse. Shepard re-appeared just before another law kicked in which would have prevented his death certificate being revoked after three years."

"How amusing. Now I see why Hackett declared one of the few pleasures he could take from the whole business was watching the judiciary tie itself in knots, unquote."

"They truly do not seem to be able to improve their laws. That does not stop the grinding of 'justice', but it makes justice something of a lottery. One human acquaintance, Zaeed Massani, told me of a couple of famous consequences."

"I have heard about your Mr Massani. Something of an expert in avoiding consequences."

"Perhaps. Zaeed is an efficient mercenary and tends to _be_ the consequences."

"He had a narrow squeak with Shepard."

"Indeed. In any event, Zaeed relates tales from the early days of UNAS, back in the late 1990's Common Era. One man thought dead for eight years turned up back in his home town in Oklahoma, and the legal system refused to lift the declaration of death. On the other hand, around the same time in another part of UNAS, Louisiana, a legally dead man named Sanders killed two women, and was tried for their murder across multiple jurisdictions."

"So. One can imagine why the JAG officers never, ever would risk such a legal quagmire, however strong the circumstantial evidence. Not again. We mustn't expect a death notice any time soon."

"But can I stress that Captain Williams said something like ' _I'm not just covering my ass._ ' Which is a human phrase meaning –"

"I'm familiar with the English locution, Justicar."

"She means she really does not have any confidence in his being dead."

"Which is interesting, yes. We must bear that in mind. But we have wandered from the point of the discussion."

"Councilor, my duty is clear, and I would do as you ask. But chaos reigns in some parts of Thessia now; there is no law, and as a practical matter I cannot threaten all malefactors with justice."

"Justicar, you have discussed this knotty matter with us calmly, responsibly, and effectively. That does convince me that you are the right person, not simply for the job of devising some resolution for the Ardat-Yakshi, but for reforming the Asari body politic."

Samara sighed. "Not everyone responds to calm. Perhaps Zaeed will come. He has been complaining about retirement being boring."

"Your mercenary. One of Shepard's team, no? That might be acceptable. Is this to be – how would Bailey put it – a good cop, bad cop scenario?"

"Perhaps if you could accredit a human liaison…"

"We await your reports, eagerly. Entertainment of that order is hard to come by. Go to Thessia, Justicar. Deliver our chain of conduit relays. Deliver the law. And where you cannot deliver the law, deliver Mr Massani."

* * *

 _Gordian knot_

That evening, Samara updated Zaeed on Tevos' assignment - and her own reluctance.

"Yeah, sweetheart. Of course I'll come."

"I shouldn't be so hasty. For one thing, I might not be going."

"Eh? Why not? Sounds like fun."

After a brief ethical struggle ( _It's supposed to be secret/It's not_ **my** _secret_ ) Samara divulged a few details of Normandy's stay on the Ardat-Yakshi planet -

"… so if I go, I'm leaving a huge problem behind me. And the code has a problem with abandonment of responsibility."

"Whoa, whoa. You're actually going to kill them all?"

"Of course. The code demands it. Asari policy has been to make an end of them for many, many asari generations."

"Yeah, but… there's nothing you can do anyway, is there? You don't know where they are, do you?"

"No. Not yet."

"So what does the code say about that?"

"Nothing specific! One is supposed to wait till conditions are suitable, not go haring off in pursuit of alternate problems! It's intensely frustrating!"

Zaeed sighed. "But that could take generations. And it sounds like you'd have an Alliance Spectre on your case if you tried. Trust me, you don't want to go there. What would Shepard have told you about killing them all?"

"To humans, they're all innocents. But what do they know? Ardat-Yakshi are desperately dangerous and addicted to inflicting a terrible death so long as they're not taught in a designated monastery. You know this, Zaeed. It is a kind of asari original sin."

"He'd still forbid it. You really want someone like Shepard on your case?"

"That's a losing game, I know. No matter; most Justicars go from duty to deceased."

Massani couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "All that matters is the code, is that it? Bollocks. Look, Samara. Relax and wait for the universe to catch up, a minute. You know I've been there with Shepard too. There's an upside, you know."

"What?"

"Think! Your daughter, what's her name? Falere?"

Samara put a hand to her forehead. This had been bound to come up, and the attendant desolating sadness with it. She would bear it.

"… Weren't you supposed to do away with her?"

"That's different. The code says I can't leave an Ardat-Yakshi at large, so long as I live. I was about to kill myself–"

"Christ!"

"- but Shepard stopped me. That prompted Falere to declare she was still in a designated monastery, and I could rely on her staying there."

"And that was acceptable to the code?"

"Yes. Williams saw all this, unfortunately. So she refused to place a beacon on the planet. She knew what I would do."

"I'm sending her chocolates, sometime. You're missing an opportunity, sweetheart."

"Is it code-compliant?"

"Better yet. It might render that part of the code null and void. We need to take the job Tevos offered. Won't that get you in Falere's neighborhood?"

"Eventually. Yes."

"And by then there will be a relay chain back here. Bring her to Williams."

"What? How will that help?"

"Tell Williams you want Falere taken to the Ardat-Yakshi. Don't you see? She can establish the whole dang planet as a monastery. No-one has to live alone any more."

Samara just stood, paralyzed by the audacity of this. It… could work. Would work.

And she wouldn't have to kill a planetary population.

After a few moments, she began to cry. This un-nerved Massani more than any gun.

…

 _Boredom_

"At least we won't have to take care of business on the Citadel. Anything's better than listening to boring C-Sec cops telling me what I can't do."

"I wouldn't have thought Bailey would care or dare to do such a thing."

"He'd dare and care, all right, if he thought I was trespassing on his parish. So then I'd wait till he wasn't looking. But I wish he'd tell off his wet-behind-the-ears recruits."

"Ah. I see. I've had to warn off a couple of those, myself."

" _Bad_ Justicar. Killed any yet?"

"That hasn't been necessary; it would upset the Admiral; and I've now got Bailey on speed dial, anyway."

"Heh. I'd love to see that one day. Otherwise, the only good thing about raw recruits is watching Vakarian's reaction when they tell _him_ what he can't do, too."

"Oooh."

"Exactly. Case of please pass the popcorn."

"What's popcorn? Never mind, Zaeed, but look… wouldn't C-Sec arrest Garrus?"

"Not hardly, beautiful."

"Why not? And don't call me that."

"As you wish. No more than they could arrest you, Justicar. Would any detective arrest you on an asari world?"

"Not for long. That's a cultural issue, and one of asari law. Here–"

"It's an asari leasehold, I know. But really dangerous people go by different rules everywhere, kid. On the Citadel, ask yourself, who would scream if C-Sec tried detaining someone like you, or that insane Eclipse lady, or Aria?"

"I suppose Councillor Tevos…"

"That's just for starters, kiddo."

"Don't call me that, I'm ten times older than you."

"But you don't have my decades of telling the Law to go stuff itself on principle. Which is why you keep me around, no?"

Samara's mouth quirked. That wasn't the main reason. Rather, having Massani around tended to be exciting, in ways she hadn't felt for four centuries, despite his being so _aggravating_. Being called young or beautiful didn't count. She could tolerate that, sort of. But truthfully, Massani's 'work' constantly twinged her code-violation bump. On the other hand, his 'work' never quite passed the code's threshold; his victims were not innocent.

Besides, Zaeed's mere presence tended to prevent certain people from getting out of hand. If they did, it tended not to be for long, and she enjoyed not having to do anything about such individuals herself. For a change.

She had no way of expressing any of this through millenial layers of self-control, however, so she contented herself with saying:

"You are being particularly annoying tonight."

"Look, love, never mind the Council. Vakarian has all sorts of friends. Starting with Bailey."

"I suppose you mean arresting General Vakarian would be a _political_ act. There's the Primarch, or Williams, or Hackett–"

"–hell, or Shepard's ghost. You don't know the half of it, gorgeous…"

"Zaeed!"

"English has lots of words like that, sweetheart, you can't ban them all… look, Garrus knows C-Sec's procedures inside out, he knows where the skeletons are buried, he's got ways of making a C-Sec officer's life miserable up the wazoo, and then he has the nuclear option."

"The what?"

"Hello, Sparatus, Vakarian here… About that standing offer of Spectre status?"

"Oh. But why hasn't he used that?"

"Think it through. Right now he's General Vakarian, the Primarch can tell him to shut up and he will, because he's still got the memory of that truncheon he carried up his ass…"

"Zaeed, my English isn't that good yet."

"I mean, he's got a conscience, poor bugger, and he's been brought up to follow orders. And he really doesn't want to be a Spectre, because he saw the grief it got Shepard. As for the good stuff, in a way he's been there and done that, on Omega."

"Yes. I thought I'd have to come back and do something about him. But in every case I examined, his victims were far from innocent. Like yours. So far."

Massani suppressed a shudder. Living with a Justicar was one of the few exciting things he could do with the rag-ends of his life now, even if every so often he was reminded quite how short that existence might be.

"It's a good thing you never heard about some of my collateral damage, then. Which reminds me - why didn't you ever go after Shepard, after Aratoht?"

"He did what he could. To have done otherwise would have doomed all, including the innocents who perished in the explosion. To the code, justice is black and white Zaeed. But I learned from Shepard how to cope with a little grey."

"Huh. Well, Vakarian learned a lot from Shepard too. Push him too far, and he'll be a Spectre like _that –_ " Massani snapped his fingers. "Which the Primarch can't be seen to oppose, but which the Primarch absolutely does not want."

"Why ever not?"

"Isa and the rest of the prophets, sweetheart, how did you survive all this time?"

"I have a deep understanding of my own people, Zaeed; less so of any other culture. Even turians, who have been around for a while. Armchair research has its limits."

"Well look at it from a politician's point of view. Archangel was bad enough when he was on Omega. No-one, except Sparatus who has his own reasons, wants the aggravation of dealing with a turian vigilante who's not just untouchable and implacable, but also _incorruptible_. Every last one of those seat-warmers is scared of what Garrus will do about them, or at least about their minions."

"Ah. A familiar scenario. I do see."

"Just like their problem with _you_ , sweetheart. You don't think Tevos picked you _just_ because you're the law, do you?"

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #23, "A bridge over Acheron_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Saturday, July 25, 2015


	5. A bridge over Acheron

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 23 **A bridge over Acheron**

* * *

 _Trial and error_

Six weeks into reconstruction, Officer Hercules found the Cerberus camp. Or to be exact, the keepers did.

"Boss, I think I need a vacation."

" _You're such a comedian, Herk. Where would you go, Paris? Most of the important bits are still there. Don't go touristing in the catacombs, though."_

"No, seriously, I'm seeing things. A keeper just toddled past wearing a piece of helmet."

" _Happens fairly often, I saw one with a naval cap."_

"This was a white and gold helmet, boss."

" _I'll be there in five, follow that finagling keeper!"_

So Armando-Owen Bailey and a C-Sec detail including Herk followed the keeper when it went back for more. In the tunnels beneath what had been bay E24, they found a trail – food wrappers, medical splints and other paraphernalia, as well as discarded armor components – leading to an atmosphere node. Behind a pile of discarded armor was a hatch…

 _Jenny_

 _They could hear someone coming. Burt took point by the door,_ _with a depleted rifle stock as an improvised club. Tom and Dick tried to stop him but by now hadn't the energy,_ _so_ _shrank back in the dark with the others._

 _Didn't really care anymore. They had come to the end of the supplies, the end of the power modules, and the end of the road._ _What a miserable existence it had been. At least the overriding buzz had gone. The pain was back, but they could think again._

 _She could see the hatch pop open by the light of Burt's eyes. He took a swing at the cop who jumped down, but the stock was grabbed from the open hatch by an arm, hauling Burt's head up. There was a TOCK; Burt fell back down through the hatch, still struggling till the first cop plastered him against a wall and slugged him again._

" _All right, you bastard. Now you're going to tell me where the hell you came from."_

 _There was a garbled choking noise._

" _And who the hell_ are _you, for starters?"_

 _Burt just got out his first name when his face blew off._

…

 _Bailey_

"Admiral, we have a situation. I'm looking at a nest of frightened Cerberus troops, some dead, about four left now… but when I questioned one his face exploded. It was a mess… I can take out the rear of the atmosphere node and blast them to vacuum but –"

…

"Yes, Commander. I've told them _I_ won't harm them, but they just say their implants will kill them and I've heard something about this. I don't think they trust me worth a damn anyhow…"

…

"No, Doctor, I _don't_ have any former Cerberus personnel. We cleaned house after the coup. I gave references for the ones I could trust to Massani and the Alliance recruitment office, three or four actually were accepted and the rest joined Cat 6, I certainly don't have anyone now."

…

"All right, ma'am, standing by."

…

 _Dick_

 _The cop hadn't budged from the hatchway. But he had shoved ration packs over and Tom had bolted them down. The others were more cautious, but finished faster than they had started._

 _Then there was water. He began to feel much happier, and a little sleepy. Food will do that. They were beginning to doze. They'd still die, of course. Just not quite yet._

 _It was a funny old universe. Getting on for a year ago, now, he'd been coming back from the greatest imaginable adventure. He'd fought the reapers with Tom, hopeless but it had delayed them, so the commander still had the ship, he'd picked them up, just in time, even a handful of the Horizon colonists too. Those taken earlier dissolved before their eyes. But_ they _personally were alive, and no-one on the crew had been left behind._

 _That wouldn't be happening this time. Cerberus was done, and so were they. All that remained was the bleeding._

 _He'd stood with Tom and Vadim clearing debris from the Oculus rift in the hull, welding patches; they'd looked up and caught each others eye, while the incandescent gas rushed past. They were Cerberus spacemen, repairing a hero ship in FTL; they had met the four corners of the universe in arms, and rocked them. So must sailors have felt on the Victory, repairing sail on the way home from the Nile._

 _It was a good memory. They'd die today, but everyone died. They'd nonetheless saved the world._

 _After half an hour, noises above the hatch. A bag was caught by the cop. A doctor in an old Cerberus uniform came down. Things were a little hazy, but it looked like …_

 _Jenny_

" _Crewman Jenny Goldstein."_

" _Ma'am? Oh! Doctor, is that you?"_

" _You appear to have been in the wars."_

" _Er, yes. Sorry, no ma'am, we missed that. We were assigned specially to Mr Harper, ma'am."_

" _Terribly thoughtful of him."_

" _Yes, ma'am. 'Keep your friends close,' he said, ma'am."_

" _How very in character. Tell me, Jenny, can I approach to wipe your eyes? Without setting off Mr Harper's happy little fireworks?"_

" _O Yes, ma'am,_ you _can. Just keep the others away please, ma'am."_

" _Will do, Jenny, for as long as we need to. I think I should give you a little more sedative, while I get you to the sick bay. Will your implants let you sleep without exploding, Jenny? Any of you?"_

" _Yes, Doctor." "Yes, ma'am." "I think so, Doctor. I don't feel bad about it."_

" _I have an assistant here, Jenny –"_

" _NO ma'am, no assistant ple – Oh. Hello, miss."_

" _Hello, Jenny. We'll get you home soon."_

" _Home?"_

" _She means the Normandy med bay, Mr Hawthorne, if that is acceptable."_

" _Yes, Doctor."_

" _You first, Jenny, we'll help your environment suit on, then you can help us with the others. We'll open the back of the atmosphere node. It's easier than getting you through the tunnels."_

 _Pay the ferryman anyway_

"We can't keep them on this ship."

"We have to keep them on _some_ ship. This one is sufficiently familiar they don't feel like they're in custody. It will do for a week or two."

Ashley gave the Admiral her best scowl: "These people have been subjected to Cerberus indoctrination."

"We at least know how that was done. Padok Wiks believes it's reversible."

"… All right. I'm glad to have _Chakwas_ back, at least."

"For a little while."

"I've been hearing things about her assistant."

" _She_ is here for therapeutic purposes."

"Hers or the kids?"

"Yes."

"If _she's_ around, where's –"

"– Don't ask."

"I see. You're taking them both away, aren't you?"

"You and your crew have to be able to stand before the Council and say ' _no-one told me anything_ ' without lying, Commander."

"Very well. I want Padok Wiks then, or Chloe Michel."

"You can't have Chloe."

"I _see_. Let me think, I still have Allers' extranet details somewhere –"

"You wouldn't."

"Maybe not, ma'am, but you would be _amazed_ what certain commanding officers would do for their ships."

"You can have Wiks. Soon. After he has figured out the reversal of at least Cerberus indoctrination. And had time to tell some of the Huerta staff."

"Why, thank you ma'am. That will be acceptable. Longer term, what are your intentions for these poor people?"

"It's still forming. If those pesky fleshy flashbangs are eliminated, we have options."

"Such as?"

Hannah leaned forward: "Miranda's expedition to Grunt's Nest."

Ashley contemplated that prospect, then nodded: "Nice. If it can be done. But that's six months to a year away. We don't even know it exists. And it'll last two years."

"Good point. She'll need something like the _Normandy_."

"You're not taking away –"

"– No, we're not. I'm officially confirming you in command. The turian fabrication dock will have produced six of the class by this time next month. We get three."

"Jeezus! Where did you get the eezo? Charon Relay?"

"Something like that. There were a lot of dead ships in orbit."

"Well they can't have the ship name."

"Miranda has dibs on _Overlord_."

" _Heh._ Sometimes that woman's like her father, in spades. At least they should feel right at home. Shanghai'd on a one-way voyage."

"Saving the world."

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #24, "Something to do with the night_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Saturday, July 18, 2015 -5/5-


	6. Something to do with the night

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 24 **Something to do with the night**

* * *

 _N_ _othing left in Rio_

Seven weeks post-Reapers the SSV _Normandy_ settled to the blackened lawn. This was a little risky, and Joker had the core on idle, reducing some of the weight strain.

 _Normandy's_ airlock hissed open; Williams and Vega stepped into the sunlight and took in the dusty mob moving to a freighter in the middle distance.

They were in front of the ICA school, located in an old barracks suburb (Vila Militar) of what had once been the Brazilian capital. Rio de Janeiro was now a town of departed memories; ghosts of persons and buildings. The Alliance had claimed it for themselves as an Earthly _pied-_ _à_ _-terre_.

The N7 "Villa" had not been a house so much as a 'village', a whole series of barracks interspersed with substantial structures dating back almost to the Portugese South American colony.

"Will you _l_ _ook_ at those sad sacks." The mob comprised a crowd of some two thousand prisoners, men, women, and children shuffling towards their freighter.

Major administrative buildings still stood. Hardly any of the military village's other structures remained intact. Most were downright skeletal.

Exceptions included a major _Presidio_ in the area which served as a prison. Bodies no longer littered the corridors. One of the first acts of indoctrinated local authorities had been to release all the prisoners… into the care of the Reapers, not to join the general flight inland. After a rapid sorting process that would have put Eichmann to shame, every last inmate had been either husked or pasted… to use the developing terminology… and that had not even been controversial among the city's middle classes. How little they had understood what was coming for them.

Brazil had suffered greatly from overpopulation and Rio's _favelas_ had been the stamping ground of a local urban warfare training school. "Red Sand" interdiction operations with the local Brazilian army had been a particularly dangerous counterinsurgency exercise for Alliance soldiers over the past half-century. The fact was that Brazilian society had, like many others, stratified into haves and have-nots that earlier generations would have found hard to credit (but which would have been very familiar to denizens of eighteenth-century Europe).

Reaper operations first collected low-hanging fruit – high-density urban populations like Rio. Following ' _negotiations_ ' with Reaper ' _representatives_ ' aboard a Reaper capital ship, those in charge actually found significant public support for endorsing Reaper operations in the slums.

Citizens with a sense of European history fled to the slowly regenerating Amazonia. On foot. They wouldn't penetrate far.

A week later, three hundred slaughterships landed on the outskirts of Rio. This was unusual; Rio was nearly the first city to suffer so intense an execution. Most others to which Reapers paid such terminal attention were simply nuked. The detailed selection suggested the Reapers were looking for individuals. In any event, after three more weeks nearly all the remaining thirty million inhabitants were 'processed,' under the supervision of those same Reaper 'representatives,' who were in their turn 'liquidated' – a term with an unpleasantly literal new meaning.

By that time, most of the indoctrinated authorities had been moved on to other cities as the new 'representatives,' later exterminated in their turn. These families were the residue. Those who still lived wanted nothing further to do with them. They couldn't really run anywhere; being in chains made a point.

The Alliance military did not have anything to do with the earthside policy of the emerging national governments, mostly dictatorships. So far, Hackett had intervened directly only twice, where the new leadership's behavior was so bad that they exhausted the patience of the electorate almost at once.

In particular, the admiralty did not halt wholesale 'cleansing' operations, like these bedraggled collaborators, either. In fact, they could not. Even Hackett had no formal municipal authority – nor enough marines to enforce his will; sufficient conscripts would have to be borrowed from the Russians, Indians, or Chinese, who had their own problems.

What he _could_ do was declare military law in a suitable area, and bear witness. Hence the presence of the _Normandy's_ crew.

"Where are they going, Ash?"

Vega had finished unloading his 'junk.' A little scout car was approaching from the remains of the N-school. That would be his taxi. Reaper harvesters had got around to _pro-forma_ destruction of the superstructure just before the Red Flash… but nearly all the ICA (N-school) was below ground, including the transport garage.

Ashley sighed and pondered her answer. Dr Wiks and Kirrahe stepped out of the Normandy's hatch, Wiks carrying the little device Mordin dubbed a 'canary' – essentially a remote 'taint of indoctrination' detector of tell-tale changes in neural oscillations, specifically (in humans) the gamma and hippocampal theta waves so important in long-term potentiation.

"De-indoctrination guinea pigs, those who signed on, anyway." Wiks nodded. Didn't look happy, but hey – Salarian. "Then they're pioneers rebuilding Arcturus station."

Vega forced his eyes off the crowd, looked back at Ash. "We can trust them with tools, huh?" He suspected Hackett, or possibly Admiral Shepard, was not telling them everything.

"When the Salarians are done with them. The worst of them, those who collaborated _before_ going inside the reaper, are going somewhere Coats wouldn't talk about."

Coats was an Alliance bigwig who advised Hackett, by now. Among other things, when tinpot Caesars tried to set up intelligence agencies, he subverted them, beginning with bugging the lavatories.

"That's crap, Williams." Ashley silently nodded. Coats, Kirrahe, and that Lawson woman kept tabs on all the local mafias. Ashley _suspected_ judicious holes were being made in the power structures every so often, but couldn't prove it. She wanted no part of such things. Garrus, however, apparently approved of certain messages being sent.

"All will be known in good time, Coats said." Williams idly contemplated her engineers' release of zippy little videodrones, recording the exodus. She wanted those responsible to face those images, decades down the track. With their grandchildren.

Ashley did not tell Vega that Hannah _had_ told her the collaborators' ultimate destination, in confidence, when she refused point-blank to be involved otherwise. The ones who collaborated from the outset had been given choices. Astonishingly, most took the guinea pig option. The possibilities offered included registration as test subjects of advanced salarian indoctrination deprogramming techniques; a firing squad, or rendition to local tribunals –

" _What could the local tribunals do that's worse than a bullet?"_

" _Don't ask, Commander. You should speak to Samara about what she's seen."_

" _No, ma'am, she was a bit miffed with me. Her code and mine conflicted. She left yesterday, anyway."_

A few could be distinguished in the crowd. Nearly bald, but with a neat surgery scar all the way around the cranium. Every last one was now carrying a hybrid device, combining graybox and bluebox. Essentially, they were all equipped with a cybernetic conscience, partly plated to the interior of the skull, partly hard-implanted. And it was a monitor, it could report back. Williams grimaced. Maybe these dregs could be useful, but what an unholy synthesis. There but for the grace of God…

"Ahoy, _Normandy_!" That was the new N commandant pulling up. Finally!

"Well, time to zip, James. Listen up. You've done things in the wrong order, you're already past the N6 requirements. This is where we see if you can do the N4 and 5. Do well in this and you will actually have earned your tattoo."

"So long, Curves. I expect to see you here someday."

"Don't call me that in public. And N5 is not going to happen, N4 was too bloody tough, especially the language bits. If that's what it takes to be a soldier, I'm not _that_ good."

"Get real, C – Commander." Ashley grinned, and kissed him full on the lips.

"Do me proud, big boy. Go now."

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #25, "Small mercies_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Sunday, July 18, 2015 -3/3-


	7. Small mercies

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 25 **Small mercies**

* * *

 _Gladiators_

The doctor and the hard-faced Alliance soldier might not want to kill him, but Hawthorne could feel he was about to tip over. _Here I go, cardiac arrest._

"Right, stop. Don't collapse, lad, tread lightly in place, walk around."

" _(Heave)_ Yes, _(Heave)_ sir." What was this all about? All Chakwas had said was, _'Do anything he asks, without exception. Try for me, would you.'_ Which had been easy _(Heave)_ to agree to at the time, _but_ expiring on a gym treadmill had not been remotely foreseeable _(Heave)_.

On the other hand, top of his list of 'Ways I'm most likely to go' was 'Don't do what Chakwas says.'

None of them could go off the ship. The hatred and fear of Cerberus troopers galaxy-wide was painfully obvious. And, to start with at least, they only had to look in a mirror to be reminded of why.

"Seen enough, Mr Coats?"

"Thank you yes, Mr Wiks, the RFL is satisfactorily exceeded. Have all the implants been excised?"

"I've left one in. There's a VI for gym training while the brain's asleep. They've been doing four hours a night. Hence the required fitness level being met so fast."

"Well… is that likely to be a problem?"

"It's been useful during recovery, but it'll be removed tomorrow, at the same time as the last cosmetic changes. There can be no dreaming while the VI is running, which creates psychological instability in the medium term."

The salarian turned to Hawthorne and asked, "Has Dr Chakwas told you the _tapetum lucidum_ will be removed also? That will degrade your enhanced night vision slightly."

"No sir. She just said she'd look after us."

"Hm. A little short on detail. But perhaps for the best. Mr Coats, are you quite finished?"

"One more. The firing range."

"Very well, Coats. I lay them in your charge till you return."

"Thank you, doctor. Lady and gentlemen, fall in. _By the right…_ "

…

 _Tinker, Taylor, Soldier_

"… Pistol now, twenty metres."

Goldstein took two steps to the bench, picked up the N7 Eagle and with automatic hand clicked in a new clip, _"Weapon unsafe"_ , one more pace to the firing step.

"Target left, Eight rounds rapid, begin."

 _PowPowPowPowPowPowPowPow._

" _Weapon clear."_

For the fourth and last time, Coats brought his pistol target set back for viewing. The central bull had been obliterated.

"That's… impressive, Ms Goldstein. And a little unexpected."

Hadley piped up: "That's not Cerberus, sir. That's just Jenny."

"Who taught you to shoot, Ms – Jennifer?"

"My father, sir."

"That would be, let's see, Master Sergeant Goldstein of the Patricias."

"Yessir."

"Much is explained. Very well. Fall in… At ease."

Coats favored them with a meditative stare. "A wholly inordinate amount of time has been expended on you by persons who do not have a lot of time. I think we should proceed to the next phase."

"Next phase, sir? Is that release?"

"You are technically a civilian. At request you could be landed earthside and answer to the civilian authorities… I see this is not your desire. But I am not your superior officer, Matthews. You need not call me Sir. My name is James Coats. You may call me Mr Coats if you wish."

"Yessir." Coats grinned internally. My, how fast this little batch was learning.

"You are about to meet a former colleague, a man of some influence. You will be aware that you are presently on evaluation for pardon. Do not fail him."

"Yessir. Who is this person, sir?"

Coats tapped his ear and said, " _Jacob, we are ready for you._ " The firing range door opened and a familiar figure walked through. Goldstein stiffened ramrod-straight and felt the others do likewise.

"A Spectre is in-system to rubber-stamp Council ratification of the decision of the Admiral in this matter. She, however, has deferred to the human Councilor to approve any such pardon. _He_ has delegated the matter to me. I have not, so far, found a good reason to deny ratification, but I will leave that decision to Mr Taylor here. Jacob?"

Coats and Taylor shook hands. Coats stepped back two paces.

"Any questions?"

"Yes, Mr Taylor. Can we go home?"

"Not quite yet, Matthews, we do not wish to cause a riot. From tomorrow, I am told, that _may_ be an option. But under the circumstances, I have arranged for your homes to come to you, in about a week."

"Thank you, Sir."

"It's Jacob. Don't thank me, it wasn't my idea. In any event, given the current sensitivity, great clanging hints have been dropped in front of me that you may wish to hire with a certain mercenary company. It will be spending the next five years, proper time, on a mission for the Council. You will be spending most of that time in cold sleep, hence the approved visit of your families. I'm told the pay is superlative – but commensurate with the risks."

"Would we stay together?"

"That, Matthews, is the general idea."

More unspoken words passed.

"We will do as you suggest, sir. Jacob."

"Very well. Be advised that the nominal leader of the party in question is a former Alliance soldier named Toombs who had until recently a pronounced negative attitude to all things Cerberus." There was general unease at this.

"However, certain events involving his major client, one Miranda Lawson, have brought about a sea-change. The mercenaries in question are now a mixed bunch. Some former alliance, some former Cerberus who got out _before_ the attempted Citadel coup, and at least one former Cat 6 pilot who trained with the Alliance Navy."

"Our Lawson, Sir?"

"That Lawson, yes, Hadley. Now fabulously rich following the death of her father, as I understand it. Hence the ability to contract a group of mercenaries with her pocket change. Do you have any qualms working under Ms Lawson, any of you?"

"No, Mr Taylor. Not if you say so."

"It is not your only option, folk. You could hire on with the Alliance. I believe there are people in high places who would have you. Or, you could accept new identities and live ordinary lives. I've settled down. It's far from a bad thing, if one has the right motivation."

They all looked at one another. They had never shared the joint consciousness of the White Guard, but mutual understanding was quasi-instantaneous.

"We'll take Lawson, if that's OK, sir."

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #26, "Dark seas_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Sunday, July 19, 2015 -3/3-


	8. Dark seas

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 26 **Dark seas**

* * *

 _Fishing expedition_

The Councilor formerly known as Ambassador Osoba gazed at the military representatives below: "Admiral Hackett, why must we lose you in particular? This… voyage to dark space."

"Not lost to you, Councilor. I will be at Arcturus, not with the N-chain Task Force."

"And as an Alliance initiative that is already alarming, Admiral. Taking some of your asari commandos and turian troops makes it Council business. Arcturus is still rather too far for comfort. There have been occasions when your presence made the difference between a riot and a massacre."

"I'm not indispensable, Councilor. Might I commend Lieutenant-Colonel Sir James Coats, as he now is, as council liaison with the Alliance?"

"Coats is… not a comfortable choice."

"He is senior, has the confidence of at least some of the Earthside authorities, and is demonstrably competent to resolve disputes. Simply put, councilors, I only have a limited number of such officers. Would you prefer Mikhailovich?"

"Which one?"

"Pyotr is available. Boris heads the Dark Space expedition."

"Pyotr. That would be the man who slung the mayor of Moscow naked by his feet from the barrel of a Mako, having him walk on his hands across Red Square. Taking pictures."

"Yes, Councilor. I believe he and Coats get along quite well."

" _Must_ you go?"

"While I might remain here, it is a bad idea for the civil authority on a planet to be seen to rely on active intervention by the military for an extended period of time."

"Like the somewhat unexpected re-emergence of the British royal family?"

"That is an internal matter for the United Kingdom, including Scotland and Wales, and certain of the overseas realms. Though I note that Coats, in his capacity as an officer of the Coldstream Guards, did the bidding of his monarch in suppressing the Mosleyite tendency."

"Suppressing. Is that the right word for pushing half the parliament out the back of a transport over the sea?"

"To be exact, councilor, one hundred metres off Brighton pier. Though the honorable members could not see land from where they departed the transport's loading hatch."

"It was a swimming lesson then?"

"Coats believed there was a point to be made about reserved powers, councilor. And another about how the military saw the issue of legitimacy."

"A somewhat extravagant demonstration."

"No-one actually died, councilor. Unlike similar measures a few centuries previously. Although if broadcast news is reliable, some members of the judiciary were so apoplectic that hospitalization was necessary."

"I have seen that, er, rationale. And that the entire legal profession is under threat of deregistration. Your departure might not be so desirable to politicians like myself, given the existence of men like those on offer."

"Councilor, you were a career diplomat, before you were ever a politician. Consider that the UK faces unique problems with indoctrination. I have discussed this with my staff, and we agree it would be best to allow some of the national arrangements to grow without us overshadowing their authority."

"Nonetheless, we need your input for space-borne initiatives also, not least Citadel reconstruction."

"For consultation, we do have the QECs. And we have delayed leaving till our fab ships will be laying frigate-capable conduit relays, which should permit both a rapid return of certain staff should it be necessary, and the founding of new colonies to relieve pressure on the Citadel and on Earth."

"Such colonies will require Council approval."

"Indeed, councilor."

"Including the proposed planet of Mosley-A. Barely a garden world."

"Yes, councilor. It does have some reasonably temperate land around the equator."

"I had the impression that this was an obscure form of threat."

"You would have to ask the Lieutenant-Colonel about that, Councilor. I have heard him call it less of a threat, more of a promise. Another kind of message, really."

"How droll."

Tevos spoke for the first time. "Justicar Samara had a suggestion, Admiral. Hannah Shepard is very senior, bears a famous name and has achieved good results in mediation. She also has a very respectable battle record. Can we not have her at hand? If not here, then on Earth?"

Now Hackett looked very uncomfortable indeed. "I had hoped to keep Admiral Shepard with me at Arcturus."

"We realize this might impose a _personal_ dilemma–"

 _Damn the woman_ , thought Hackett, _she's blackmailing me. I can't allow that._ Well, he and Hannah had known this moment might come.

"Not at all, Councilor. It will be difficult to part with such a competent tactician, but we are not currently engaged in conflict. Admiral Shepard would be suitable and I will make her available."

The look on Tevos' face could only be described as _shock_. Valern, too, seemed taken aback. _Put that in your pipe and smoke it. There's a lot more going on than the STG realizes._

 _The dangle of the angler fish_

Sparatus resumed the inquisition. "We return to the remaining point at issue. Is the fact of one of the Alliance fleets being several years travel time away–"

"– two years, Councilor Sparatus."

"Two years, then. Is that another subtle form of message?"

"Hardly, councilors. The crew will be in cold sleep, except for rotating watch officers, nearly all of the time. Revivification takes around two days to minimize the risks of awakening from cold sleep, for humans. It would be nearly a week before a properly thoughtful response to emergency can be given, from up to twelve thousand light years away. And then, the whole fleet can't pass through the conduits, only frigates at most. Someone on the spot will have to make such decisions."

"It does not help that most of the remaining Earth fleets are with you at Arcturus."

"There is a great deal of rebuilding to do there, councilor, but we anticipate the return of two fleets after two more years. And they are only two days travel away, in emergency."

Tevos spoke again. "We do still have the citadel fleet, Admiral. We will cope. Does it not bother you that aliens have local military superiority?"

"For some reason I would find difficult to articulate, Councilor, the prospect does not fill me with dread. Particularly since the local commanders include Coats, Mikhailovich, and now, of course, Shepard."

The four Councilors looked at each other. Tevos nodded.

"Very well Admiral. The whole exercise seems pointless. But we have regretted not giving our support before. We approve. The colony too."

"Councilors, all I can do is repeat the words of Urdnot Wrex. Freely translating: _'Until you have burned the nest, you have_ _only_ _scotched the snake.'_ "

"What exactly do you think you might find?"

"We are expecting traps of some kind. There will be an advance reconnaissance with two cloaked _Normandy_ -class frigates, one advancing while the other scans. The Fifth fleet will be only days behind that. We expect to find Reaper remnants. Perhaps active ones."

"But you feel you must determine what is in dark space."

"Yes. It is not guaranteed that we will prevail. If the worst comes to the worst, we should be able to describe what we met by QEC before the expedition is scattered. And the frigates will close the relays inbound as they pass through back to Earth. By using fast fleet units and optimizing the eezo cores for the fastest possible speed, we believe we can lay a chain of conduit relays in two and a half years."

"How do you know where to go?"

"By extrapolation of the timing of the route that Reapers had to adopt to enter Batarian space, after failing at the Citadel and the Alpha Relay. In addition, we actually can decrypt Reaper communications since the late stages of the war, so asari commandos have been able to anticipate Reaper movements. Captured remnants of Reaper cores have given more precision. The candidate region of space is a distorted cube of some fifty light years on the way to the Omega Centauri globular cluster. Actually a little off-axis but-"

"That is a huge volume, Admiral – yet still a pinprick on the map of your journey."

"We are optimistic that if we do our job right _they_ , whatever's there, will find us. Or at least, part of us."

"The part you want them to see?"

"The part we must sacrifice, Councilor. Not everyone comes home from war."

"I know."

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #27, "Chain home_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Monday, July 20, 2015 -4/4-


	9. Chain home

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 27 **Chain Home**

* * *

 _N-1_

The skeleton of a new Arcturus station lay before them as _Kilimanjaro_ slowly came to a stop, its nose ten metres from the surface of the S-2 moonlet. The N-1 conduit relay would be attached to an altazimuth mount rising from the thin regolith.

"Here's my stop," said Tali. "I'm tuning this new one, over the next few hours, then catching the next frigate back to Earth."

"Whoa. What are we looking at? I thought we'd be on an iron bubble or in space."

Free-space relays existed, but asteroid-mounting allowed for ground vehicles equipped with a small maneuvering eezo core to pass through and stop at the station.

"No, Ash. Haven't got the recipe right yet. This is an ordinary chondritic asteroid. Gravity is weak, but sufficient to keep a maintenance station stable."

Engineers had experimented with forming an iron asteroid bubble, by delving to the core of a nickel-iron asteroid, depositing a liquid argon core, tamping and plugging the hole, then sending it in a close elliptical orbit around the sun. On emergence from the searing blast, instabilities meant only one in five formed a true bubble, and quite non-spherical at that. Better results were hoped for eventually, but for now a roughly spherical solid asteroid would serve to mount conduit-relays.

"We need a maintenance shed for each relay?"

"Not usually. These are new and a bit experimental. The sixth-generation is not just big enough to carry a frigate, Garrus' team also figured out why that stupid thousand-light-year limit was happening."

"So there's longer range."

"Yup. Basically, the wormhole pairs weren't synchronized properly by the QEC."

"So, let's see, we've suddenly got the same sort of range as the Protheans had from Ilos to the Citadel."

"Yup again, nearly a galactic diameter."

"And, _Kilimanjaro_ will make the N-2 on the way to the next stop? About six kilolights away, which I gather is about the last actual planetary system before you go out of the galactic plane and have to use rogue planets to discharge the drive cores. "

"Right again. Which means by the way that although we have plenty of conduit-relay range, _Kilimanjaro_ will still have to stop off every couple of days at some rogue gas giant and dezap the drive core. She could drill into a rocky asteroid _in extremis,_ or trail a five-thousand kilometre long wire net for a few hours, but that's not fun."

"So where's the S-2 conduit-relay we just came through?"

"S-2's mounted on the far side of the asteroid from N-1. Conduit-relays are oriented so as to allow incoming frigates like the _Normandy_ wormhole entry from space, but S-2 would have already been behind you as you came out."

The _Normandy_ had come through S-2 a few hours before, but of course the instant it dropped out of the wormhole, S-2 was only visible in Joker's rear vidcam.

"That mounting looks steerable."

"Yep. Just suppose some unfriendly power gain access to the E-1 conduit in geosynchronous orbit around Earth, or the R-1 conduit in Rio, or the S-1 conduit on Pluto."

"Let me guess. You flip the conduit so they bury themselves."

"Quite right. We don't advertise it. But the maintenance station would change the orientation so that, say, an incoming Oculus or a Collector frigate would impact the asteroid surface at conduit-relay engagement speeds, typically five hundred kilometres an hour but really there's no upper limit."

"Quarians have evil minds."

"It was Kenneth's idea, Ash."

The gaping fab doors slowly revealed Tali's new N-1 conduit-relay, quickly detached by drones and guided to the mounting point where techs waited.

"So long, guys."

"See you, Tali. Probably not soon."

"I know. Keep well." And she entered the airlock. It took half a minute to cycle, then Ash saw Tali skip slowly to the station hatch ten metres away.

"All right, Joker. Let's go get Hannah and her "comm specialist" from the _Orizaba_."

"So we're taking Hannah to Adelaide, then Hobart, right? And Kelly's her yeoman? Why are _we_ the taxi?"

"She's going to be Hannigan, again again, definitely not appearing in any photo-ops, and _you_ told _me_ she's still a bit queasy about warships, especially this one."

"She'll get over it."

"Maybe. Anyway, our Hannigan will be on some remote Pacific island while Hannah zips around."

"Still, we're the glorified taxi? Come _on._ "

"I suspect Hackett doesn't want to expand the circle of those who might know something. We're taking them to Tasmania first, because some turian wants to check on her. Then someplace east, in the Pacific. There's a whole bunch of people he wants far from media attention. We're taking Brynn Cole to work on generating a grid soliton–"

"– They'll both be popping babies together."

"Shush. Loose lips sink ships. We're taking Gavin Archer there too, doing AI personality research. Also Anne Bryson, continuing work on Leviathan indoctrination."

"And I bet Mom Shepard suddenly develops a consuming interest in all those."

"Shush!"

"Nothing to do with grandchildren, oh no."

" _Moreau_ _!_ "

"Okay, okay, dammit, I just need to vent about being a taxi driver."

"Shut up and soldier, sailor. I'm going to check on that evil genius Donnelly and his minions."

"Minion, singular. Or is Donnelly _her_ minion?"

"Shush."

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #28, "Separation anxiety_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Monday, July 20, 2015 -3/3-


	10. Separation anxiety

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 28 **Separation Anxiety**

* * *

 _Matchmaker_

The private message terminal noticed her presence and bing-bonged at her. Kahlee swore she'd get around to muting it… later. Then she noticed the flashing green _priority_ signal. Oh dear.

It was indeed a note from Hackett's staff advising that her orders had been cut transferring her from _Orizaba_ to _Overlord_. At last! She composed a quick acknowledgment, ordered a coffee, poured a whisky, and waited. It took eight minutes.

" _Sanders!_ "

"Jack?"

"Did you know about this?"

"Sit down, Jack, have a drink, here. Could you be a little more specific?"

"They're sending some of the kids to battle! With Lawson! On another _Normandy!_ "

"You're thinking of _Overlord_ , Miranda's new _turian_ -built duplicate. I know _I'm_ going, my orders just arrived. It's formally a Normandy-class frigate, but there are minor differences. There's only one _Normandy,_ Jack."

"Whatever. They're sending my best kids!"

"The kids are ready, Jack. At least, Prangley, Rodriguez, and Merizan. The Bellarmines are catching up."

" _Without me!_ "

"Ah." Kahlee put on a thoughtful expression. "Well, I can sort of understand why. Don't you two have history?"

"Yes! I mean, no! Nothing serious!"

"I think I heard Hannah Shepard saying Jack would never serve under Miranda. That's probably part of it."

" _Arrrgh!"_

"Was she wrong?"

Jack didn't answer at once. She sat, put her elbows on her knees, and her forehead in her hands, then: "Sanders, _please_. Do something."

"Let me think." Sanders got up, picked up her coffee, and looked out her viewport for a few seconds. "Well… I can see two problems – Jack, that drink's for you. Try it."

Jack unbent. Looked at the glass. Took a sip. "What _is_ this stuff?"

"Islay scotch. From Donnelly. After I wangled leave for him and Gabby."

"Okay. Someone was wanting a dirty weekend?"

"I think they both were."

"Why don't they get married and have kids? Hey, this stuff has a kick. I can feel it doing me harm. More, please."

"Here… something about orange and green, I must have missed something there. Also, they'd be posted apart."

"Stupid fleet regs. That's gotta change."

"Maybe not. It's one reason Shepard had a mother, instead of no parents at all."

"Oh." Jack had mellowed a little now, was pensive. "Sanders, don't shit me, can you get them back?"

"I don't think so. Coats asked for them, specifically. Actually, he also asked for _you_. But Miranda said 'bad idea', and… well, the brass agreed."

"Dammit, we get along now! Sort of. I try not to call her names and she says she's trying not to be snarky."

" _Really?_ When did this happen?"

"Since forever! Well actually it started at that final wingding at yours and Anderson's place, after Shepard creeped us both out… you don't want to know."

"Anderson gave that apartment to Shepard."

"Yeah, that's a crock, nobody signed anything, and for real estate there has to be a writing. I tried to have another party there. Hackett said no, he's the executor of Anderson's estate and he says it's a major asset. Shep's not around to dispute it. He wouldn't anyway."

"It's still in one piece?"

"I think so. Ask about it."

 _That_ was a surprise. Kahlee perked up. Perhaps there was something left of David. "Moving on. I'd have to convince both of you to work together."

"Look, I can work with Miranda, okay?"

"On _her_ ship? Would you take orders?"

Jack's face twisted. Kahlee knelt beside her and looked up; there were tears. Damn. "Jack. _Jennifer Null_ _._ I have to know, from you, that it's OK to speak to Miranda."

"Suppose she does some silly stunt and gets the kids killed?"

"That's not how chain of command works. She would ask _you_ to do something with your team. You might die with them. That's a military risk."

"Well… I could do that."

"Besides, as I understand it, she has her own 'kids'. So she'd understand how you feel."

Jack looked interested.

"Coats asked for her rather special people too. You might have known them. Cerberus crew on the _Normandy."_

"How come Miranda got involved with them? She's not the sentimental type."

"They were Shepard's crew while she was XO, remember. They got picked up on the Citadel during the coup then implanted, indoctrinated, and pressed into service with the Illusive Man till he died."

"That miserable f… fool made husks of them?"

"He would have said 'improved'. He died. They didn't, and his power was broken. They hid for weeks, starving slowly. They couldn't surrender because of the suicide chip in their brains that would have killed them. Chakwas got wind of them, dressed up in her old uniform, and convinced them the sick bay of the _Normandy_ wasn't a surrender. When they woke up, the chip didn't wake up with them."

"That woman is _so_ cool."

"She had to call in some favors. Now Miranda says she can't ever repay her. That might be a way in for you. With your kids. I'll see what I can do."

" _Pleeeeeze!"_

"It could take me a while. Chakwas and Wiks have only just finished reversing Harper's mods."

"Can we trust them?"

"The hard part was the indoctrinated brain paths, but the Alliance picked up Jana – the neuroscientist who headed the team responsible. Harper betrayed _them_ , too, and she provided tech details. Between her team and Wiks, they've set about depowering and removing the implants, but a lot of the motor coordination and imprinted reflexes are still there."

"That's not comforting."

"Miranda says the kids' old personalities are coming through again, but she's saying the most _vile_ things about Harper."

"… Maybe she's learned something."

"She actually said, and I quote, ' _I should have listened to Jack._ ' Look, she's meeting me at the new docking bay where _Overlord_ is fitting out. You want to come?"

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #29, "_ Overlord _and ladies_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Monday, July 20, 2015 -3/3-


	11. Overlord and ladies

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 29 **_Overlord_ and ladies**

* * *

 _Overlord_

Jack walked to the dock gate, with deliberate step, five of her biotic team from Grissom behind her.

Miranda stood with arms folded by the dock gate. One SR-2 duplicate close to them was in colors close to those of _Normandy_ itself. There was an actinic blue cast to the surface of a second _Normandy_ -class frigate at an adjacent dock. Almost Alliance colors. Jack and her retinue came abreast.

"Miri? Is that blue one _Overlord?_ "

Miranda looked up, leaned against a support column, and casually asked: " _Miri?_ Why call me that?"

"Not sure." Jack responded, looking a little confused. "It trips off the tongue better, especially since I'm hung over."

Miranda sighed. "All right. It's not important. And no, that's Garrus' new ship, PFS _Peacemaker_. Ours is the white one nearest us." The far gate opened. "Hey, here comes Sanders."

Four ex-Cerberus crew formed up behind a familiar blonde woman, and began to approach their ship. Jack's eyes narrowed.

"Their eyes are bruised."

"Jack, I know they still have sort of raccoon eyes. We're working on it. Don't let it fool you. They're not Cerberus any more, but they're very close-knit, and happier with people they know. Who don't spit on them."

Now it was _Jack_ who leaned against a support: "Back off a bit and fall in, guys."

She scanned the dock for strangers and examined the junior crew in the background, discreetly. "I see Goldstein… Hawthorne… two I don't recall the names of, but I know them."

"Good eyes. When we picked them up there were some dead, from the security detail – the ones left are Goldstein, Matthews, Hadley, and Hawthorne. The Illusive Man apparently took a personal interest in them."

"That sucks lemons. Goldstein I liked. She was kinda pretty, in a no-nonsense ponytail sort of way. How long did he have them?"

"Too long. We haven't dared strip out _all_ the implants, yet. So far we've clipped the indoctrination bridges and anything which would show on bare skin."

"Well, _dayum_. At least their eyes aren't glowing any more."

"You're right, it's a stupid mod, only marginally worth it. Terrible psychologically but the Illusive Man didn't care. They've all had to grow up very fast. Matthews used to be callow and Hawthorne was a smartass, but they had the highest IQs on the crew, except for Patel. Hadley at least will make a good leader of men one day. Not sure what Harper saw in Goldstein, but she's no dummy."

Nodding thoughtfully, Jack turned back. She motioned her five students to come forward, and addressed them in a low voice:

"Okay, team leaders, listen up you'll need to relay this to your squads. You are about to meet some crew a few years older than you who used to be Cerberus. They look a little creepy. They still bear the scars."

"They're not as off-putting as they were," muttered Miranda.

Sanders drew up. "Good morning, Jack. Miranda, I have the chicks."

"Sanders, if I tell you that I knew your 'chicks' when they stood between _Normandy_ and the Collectors, would you know what I mean?"

"Not really, Jack. "

"Yeah. All right, how can I put this… they put themselves in harm's way for us all, but the Alliance threw their friends in prison and threatened them, too. You there, Goldstein, right? What did you do?"

"We hid, ma'am."

"So you hid, and Cerberus commandos got you on the Citadel, right? You, there, what's your name?"

"Hadley, ma'am. We were picked up in different places, though. Not altogether, all at once. The press squads had different lists, ma'am. The longest list was for shoot-on-sight. I saw five people get put up against a wall."

Miranda broke in: "You were on some _other_ sort of list then?"

"Not sure, but we all met Mr Harper by video link, Ms Lawson. He told us we'd done well under Shepard and he expected us to do even better under him, but we had to go through 'induction' first."

"Very well. Lady and gentlemen, you all know the lady we all call, simply, 'Jack.'

Nods all around. "Aye aye, ma'am."

"You have presumably been introduced to Sanders. These other recruits will be bunking with you. They are biotic specialists, but you will all be expected to assume normal shipboard duties. Clear?"

"Ma'am, yes ma'am."

"Good. Before we board, please bear in mind that these students were very nearly kidnapped for the same purposes as yourselves, from Grissom Academy; but the Illusive Man's plans were frustrated by Commander Shepard. Jack, Sanders tells me you were their instructor?"

"My scandalous school, yes. It wasn't just Shepard, though. Sanders here called him in, and he brought Liara and Javik. Between us all we creamed the best part of two Cerberus companies."

"I _see_. I'll get that story off you later, if you don't mind. Are we done? These are the last crew to board."

"No problem. Sanders even has video. Hang on, though."

Jack turned back to her biotic students. "There you have it, guys.

Kahlee joined her. "What you have in common is your enemies."

"Right. These guys might have been Cerberus once, but hell, the Illusive Man thought Shepard and I were working for him too. Just don't forget, Harper put these people through what Cerberus wanted to do to _you_. Team leaders, does having been on a Cerberus ship make them your enemy?"

Some thoughtful faces. "No, ma'am. They were press-ganged?"

"You got that straight. Listen up. You're not students anymore. Neither are they. Remember that. Don't be put off by the zombie eyes, that's being taken care of. One more thing. Ms Lawson here is a civilian, but she's _Captain_ Lawson. What does that mean? Prangley?"

"Uhh… she gives the orders?"

"A bit slow, Prangley, but you got that right. On board ship, her word is law. Right here and now she's Miranda Lawson. When you board that ship, she's Jupiter and Jehovah. Are we clear?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Take it away, Miranda. Hey, are any of these ex-Cerberus kids biotics?"

Miranda shook her head. "Matthews and Hawthorne are tech specialists, nav and engineering. Goldstein and Hadley are just troopers, but good ones. Okay. Recruits, you don't have to trust one another right away. Let us worry about that. But you _will_ sit with the others at table. Hear me? You might need them, and they might need you."

The biotic specialists and ex-Cerberus troop nodded. "Aye aye, ma'am."

"Good. Your first act after bunk assignment is to exchange details and draw uniform. Double file, advance and be recognized."

The little group, barely half a platoon, boarded the gangway to airlock security.

"Whew. Damn it, Jack, how did you manage to ask that? I met these guys a week ago and never picked up the courage to ask them how they came to be mind-raped."

"Don't sweat it, I've had a year to get used to the idea that a student's background might explain how they learn. Sanders, anything more before we board?"

"Um… I have updated orders from Hackett. Have you met Admiral Mikhailovich?"

"Boris, the mad Russian?" Miranda suppressed a snigger:

" _I_ have. He came through _Overlord_ after delivery here, and sniffed at the oversized drive core." Kahlee looked severe:

"Were you polite?" And Jack picked up on this. "I'm not allowed to rain on his parade?" Miranda shook her head. _Later_ _._

"It was hard. I wished Shepard or Ashley were here. He disrespected the design in front of Garrus, who represented the Primarch at the commissioning–"

"– _No!_ " Jack was enthralled. Kahlee winced.

"He's really very good at his job, Jack. But he had a run-in with Shep just after he was made Spectre, and still nurses a bruised ego. Let's just hope he stays on the _Kilimanjaro_? No?"

"Too late, Sanders. Boris called a conference on _Peacemaker_. He seems to have been under the impression that because the _Normandy_ classes are stealthy and have multiple QECs that they're diplomatic and command ships. Snarked about not needing a _Peacemaker_ for talking to Reapers."

"He said _that?_ To a Turian. To _Garrus?_ Jeeze!"

"Exactly! And Garrus, of course, being a complete gun nut, lectured him for two minutes about some famous old revolver and a chain gun. The gist was that if the human Admiral couldn't understand a cultural reference from his own planet, perhaps the Turians would be obliged to undertake their own expedition. Then he walked out."

"Oh my God." Kahlee regretted sending the juniors out of earshot. "Boris upset?"

"You think? The Primarch and Hackett had to get involved, and Mikhailovich isn't commanding the stealth pickets during approach phase anymore. _Garrus_ is."

"So what's Boris doing?"

"He's commanding the scout flotilla from the _Kilimanjaro_ , Jack. Which isn't a dreadnought anymore, it's a glorified space factory for making conduit relays. He's also the engineering fabrication chief – and actually a rather good one."

"Doesn't matter. The upshot is that he can be as sniffy as he likes, Miranda, but Hackett says _you're_ not in his line of command– "

"– Merciful providence."

"– ' _until contact with the enemy'_ , quaint phrase for battle. You are, with Garrus, expected to flush the Reapers out. And survive."

"I can live with that. Okay, let's get this show on the road."

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #30, "Revolver_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Monday, July 20, 2015


	12. Revolver

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 30 **Revolver**

* * *

 _Six pack_

Vakarian watched three familiar figures enter _Overlord_ with a pang of nostalgia. He liked Sanders, respected Miranda Lawson's achievements with her co-opted mercenaries, and was a little in awe of Jack, or at least her ability to pick interesting fights.

He considered paying a visit. But they looked a bit preoccupied, and he had his own… calibrations to do, of crew as well as guns. Speaking of which, the loading trolley had just left the front loading hatch. Time to head for the elevator.

 _"Nyrek. With me. Where's Riley?"_

 _"She's already down in the loading bay, General, fitting up the revolving blitz pod."_

Briskly moving aft, Garrus happily considered the state of the ship. The human/turian design had undergone a few changes, but the CIC map location still followed turian standards. In most other respects the machinery was likewise the same as the original design, excepting Tali's improvements to the original Normandy…

 _"I'd try the stairs, General. It only takes eight seconds to go down a level."_

… and there you had another exception. The humans had insisted on an alternative to the elevator – primitive and unsafe access stairs following the wall curvature. After the débâcle when the soliton grid disabled Normandy's elevator controls, he'd agreed. Turian engineers had (with bad grace) accepted this, as emergency access was suddenly an issue.

 _"True, Nyrek, but the steps do clatter so. I notice that the ones in_ Overlord _have rubberized cleats and step clips."_

They and the humans were learning such fascinating details from each other. Wars before the Shanxi conflict had been so one-sided in favour of the turian empire that such… accommodations hadn't been necessary.

 _"I'll speak to the engineers about it, sir."_

Turian ingenuity had wrought the Thanix cannon, wonderful instruments of destruction, of proven value even against a Reaper destroyer, particularly if a hit were scored on the open priming chamber.

 _"They're a bit busy with the blitz pod at present, Nyrek, leave it for slack time."_

Against a Reaper capital ship, even Thanix streamguns hadn't a prayer. Absent something better, a frigate's only defences would be stealth and speed.

 _"Come on now, sir, you're just itching to play with the new toys."_

 _"Not at fifty thousand credits a torpedo I'm not, Corporal."_

This was somewhat hypocritical, thought Nyrek. The captains of _Overlord_ and _Peacemaker_ were not by temperament suited to the role of small mammals hiding from dinosaurs.

Vakarian's idea of a dinosaur hunt involved artillery.

Lawson's involved a cliff. Or a staked snakepit.

That quasi-human female could be… disturbing, at times. However, she had been instrumental in getting the turian and human staff colleges to put their heads together. The teams they formed, including the Normandy engineers, had productively compared notes – after cautious negotiations.

Nyrek had been deep in thought as they entered crew deck by the med bay and crossed to the stairs down to engineering.

 _"We're fifteen minutes from lift-off, General. What have the mercenaries been hiding in their loading bay, Sir? Can you tell us now?"_

Worries about the task force weaponeers weren't just casual. Some of the blistering comments by that damned difficult human Admiral Mikhailovich, which had just enough validity to sting, had helped generate new ideas. His objections weren't xenophobic or technical; Mikhailovich had appreciated the turian Thanix streamgun design, for example, very much. They had to do with military doctrine.

 _"All I could see was two bloody great gun shapes covered with canvas and foil, Nyrek, and Alliance military guards. Not mercs. Shepard might have told me what's going on, but he's not around any more."_

The Turian hierarchy felt it would have been a lot easier to argue with Mikhailovich had Lawson spoken in support, but she was close-mouthed.

Primarch Victus and Garrus had their own ideas about doctrine, notably the use of flexible but overwhelming force at a _schwerpunkt_. That traditional turian doctrine had been somewhat discredited by Reaper force being even greater and more flexible than their own, but Victus' revised version incorporated some innovations that, it was hoped, Reapers would not anticipate.

From Engineering the hull-following stairs stopped, to get the cargo bay you either took the elevator or access shafts in the subwell.

Nyrek wasn't letting this go. _"So it's a special gun sir? A super_ Cain _maybe?"_ Garrus headed for the elevator and tried to think.

What was really odd and unsettling about Mikhailovich's doctrine, was nothing to do with guns or weapons. Simply put, he did not agree with either turian or familiar human military doctrine. Certainly not the technical and soldierly virtuosity of normal Alliance doctrine as they understood it, relying on layered defence and a fleet in being.

 _"I didn't even ask Williams, she'd laugh and tell me to ask again after five shots of whisky, I'm not going down that road again, and Lawson would just give me a beady eye. But I'd assume it's not just guns. There's something else going on, something about the way they'll be used."_

Hackett had fought what amounted to a guerrilla action where it was assumed the enemy's strong concentrations could not be broken head-on, purely to gain time for deployment of a superweapon. But Earth had drafted three percent of its population, and one percent had made it to fleet troop carriers by the time the Reapers hit. Over a _hundred million_ men.

Mikhailovich, therefore, constantly harped and hammered on unremitting harassment, committing vast numbers of cheaply trained soldiers. With warning provided by the Collector ship, he and his allies had prompted the Alliance and Turian navies to construct a great many standard 250,000 tonne freighters equipped for cold sleep, and later there were huge, barely maneuverable cylindrical shells – "barracks-ships," so-called.

Between the freighters and the barracks-ships, the Alliance alone was "housing" those troops in cold sleep, in dark space. That was not counting the empty shells set aside for Krogan troops. These were supposed to be supported by cheaply built 'fleet destroyers'. But Mikhailovich did not have them, because Hackett had diverted so much Alliance engineering to the Crucible project.

He might have them soon, though. If rumours were true, the Crucible project had been ordered by QEC to start building more conduit relays and fleet units to carry them. Still, like other NAS-based Alliance strategists, Hackett would not commit troops to a sausage grinder – but Coats and especially Mikhailovich would, so long as victory was thereby assured.

 _"Are they sending a ground-based army, sir?"_

That sounded like a recipe for disaster; one problem with Mikhailovich's approach was the lengthy co-ordination time required. On the other hand it had sometimes worked very well on occupied colonies; when major Reaper units left to address a threat by Hackett's main fleets, the 63rd Scout flotilla would descend to places like Terra Nova and simply massacre as much as ninety-eight percent of enemy effectives in hours; even Reaper destroyers turned out vulnerable to a nuke's precursor wave. Reapers had found, as with many empires before, that their combat-effective capital units could not be everywhere at once.

 _"Not likely, Nyrek. For this expedition Hackett has selected Mikhailovich, of all people, to attack what might well be a reservoir of Reaper capital ships."_

 _"What had he been smoking, sir?"_

 _"He would not discuss his choice further."_

There had been speculation that Hackett wanted to discredit a political rival; Mikhailovich came from a prickly and difficult nation-state not completely happy with its influence in what passed for Earth government these days.

This had been somewhat dispelled by the appointment of Dominic Osoba as councilor, who did not seem at all under anyone's thumb, and certainly not Hackett's.

 _"It's got to be something to do with the elder Shepard, sir. Must be."_

Garrus thought the corporal was wrong. The conspiracy theories lately focused on a supposed relationship between Hackett and Admiral Shepard. Surely not.

 _"I couldn't possibly comment, Corporal."_

First, Hackett's disappearance to Arcturus while Hannah Shepard circulated among Council diplomats, usually on Earth's surface where she had dramatically improved reconstruction efforts, had killed such speculation.

Second, and Garrus couldn't let this slip out, their separation probably had something to do with Shepard's dying body. Only four turians existed who knew it had been recovered: Tactus, Vakarian, then the Primarch – who had told Sparatus.

 _"And I don't want to hear you speculating with crew. Clear, Corporal?"_

Tactus was of the opinion John Shepard's body had stayed with the mother. That was a 'born secret', never to be even remotely hinted at outside a secure bubble.

 _"Whatever's going on between the human top brass, it can't have anything to do with our mission. They're not here, they won't be the field commanders."_

This was reinforced by extraordinary scenes Tactus had witnessed between Lawson and Chambers, hinting at deep emotional links non-humans could barely guess at, except for Liara, who clearly intuited _something_ but wouldn't be drawn on the subject.

Too bad. Garrus was conflicted about Chambers/Hannigan.

 _"It'll just cause strife with the_ Overlord _crew. We can't have that."_

 _Misericord_

He refused to think of Shepard's old yeoman as Kelly, now. He'd got into the habit of calling her that when she'd just been a sweet and harmless human female, _hah,_ _riiight_ , who had inexplicably managed to coax from him his worries about his family.

He hadn't even been drunk. Human secretaries! Samantha Traynor was worse. Suddenly Shepard had been in the doorway when he got a message from his dad and sister. That message had to have been routed through Traynor's comm board. But Chambers was unique. There were entirely too many coincidental connections between her and the human hierarchy. Garrus didn't believe in coincidences.

Then again… she'd been a spy for the Man. Garrus had been cold and distant to her, even rude. That had been a mistake. Liara had given him a **look**. Michel had seemed _hurt_. Compounding that, she'd been useful, with the refugees, so he'd felt guilty.

 _"We don't understand humans that well, they don't understand us, and we've no asari on board yet to help."_

What was a self-respecting turian soldier to do? Some mysterious sisterhood thing in play there. He put up with Chambers, and she got the subliminal message.

Tactus and Massani took her part, but Garrus remained deeply suspicious of some ulterior motive. Mind you, she dropped out of sight when adoring refugees wanted to give her money, post-reapers. Some of them, like Ashland and Elkoss, were seriously rich. What had been the point of that? More damn mysteries.

 _"Also, it would disrespect the dead."_

Turians had a thing about military dead. They found places like the Yasukuni shrine quite comprehensible, which asari did not. It even resembled the Guardian Rest.

Garrus honored the memory of Shepard as much as the next sentient, but his memory was assuming the ghastly outline of religious devotion. Shepard would not have approved. Especially not if he was still alive, which Tactus could not rule out, but Chloe Michel said he was not long for this world, before she clammed up completely.

More likely his mom had buried him at a South Pacific hidey-hole until the hysteria was over. Post exhumation he could quietly be slipped into the ground at Arlington.

The elevator stopped; they exited among racks of FTL fire-and-forget rounds for the revolver pod.

 _"Look at that, Nyrek. Riley, Kozlo, you've made a thing of beauty."_

The joint team had two ideas which might ensure continued survival. Both involved weapons really too big for a frigate, but after the scene with Mikhailovich there was motivation to try something wild.

 _"Thank you, Sir. Nyrek, are we with your troop?…"_

The humans on _Overlord_ had been quite open about intending to use nuclear weapons. Initially, this was laughable. Even boosted fission devices hadn't the energy of a single Reaper main shot, about 250 kilotons TNT-equivalent tops, maybe twelve times the size of the nominal nuke that had been dropped on Hiroshima. Pointless. A Reaper's point-defence systems would kill turian nukes five kilometres away.

Turians had never been so silly. You don't foul your own nest with radiation in a ground war. Even thermonuclear warheads, with sufficient layers of fusible material wrapping a fission bomb, maybe an order of magnitude more powerful, weren't likely to hurt a Reaper unless it went off inside (as on Palaven) or really close to the hard exoskeleton, which would allow X- and gamma-radiation to strike deep.

That wouldn't happen in a realistic space rumble. What were they missing? The humans were altogether too sanguine about the idea. The problem was that Mikhailovich had agreed with their analysis. But he'd _smirked_ … which, Liara, said, meant trouble.

So she had done a bit of research.

 _Sucker bet_

It turned out that humans had discovered a method of gaining much greater efficiency from thermonuclear warheads and had managed to make 'hydrogen bombs' several orders of magnitude more potent than the fission warheads typically used in old Turian times. Also, they had miniaturized them to an astonishing degree. Some rocket-borne payloads had a dozen independently targetable warheads.

Even so, in deep space a nuclear warhead couldn't transmit the deadly blast effects which made them so dangerous in-atmosphere. The harm would come from 'prompt radiation' crossing the vacuum, and Reaper shielding could take four dreadnought 38 kiloton hits before degrading. Turians, like other races, had never taken nuclear designs beyond simple layered-fissile methods. For space battles, they were pointless. For ground bombardment, kinetic strikes were cheaper and much, much more destructive.

Victus had dismissed the whole nuke notion as another unproductive Mikhailovich brainstorm. Garrus wasn't so sure. Hackett and Coats had not reined him in. It smelled of an _I-know-something-you-don't_ situation of the kind Salarians were so good at.

All the same, Garrus preferred a different human idea; the blitz pack, the revolver FTL pod which reminded his liaison officer, Riley, of an old human chemical-propellant pistol.

Riley had been the team leader of the Cyone fuel base. As N7, she'd been ordered into Hammer and Nyrek had suggested her as liaison. Riley had shown them her personal "revolver", in a wooden display box, an intricately engraved bit of primitive technology of the kind the turian empire had abandoned four thousand years previously. The antique sidearm was only three centuries old.

It was a shocking reminder of the stagnation of the old council civilizations, but what had struck Victus most was the name given this particular model. There had been many 'revolver' manufacturers. Riley spoke knowledgeably about Webley .455 calibre for example, but her own one did not have an unsubtle macho nickname like 'manstopper'. Instead, it was known as a 'Peacemaker'.

 _An odd name for such a weapon_ , observed the Primarch. It was issued to peace officers – police – said Riley, in matter-of-fact tones. But she also quoted an ancient Roman proverb, _ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant_. "Where they make a lonely desert waste, calling it peace".

Early Roman culture closely resembled turian society, right down to scorched-earth responses to rebellion. Victus had liked the phrase, and christened Garrus' new vessel _Peacemaker_. It would not have been Garrus' first choice, yet he perversely felt an obscure pride. Tacitus would have been rotating in his grave so fast you could fit up a dynamo and generate power.

The six 'bullets' _Peacemaker_ could fire in rapid succession were twelve metres long, with a shuttle-grade FTL drive core and a new FTL controller VI which did NOT halt for obstacles.

They had just enough Helium-3 to cross a stellar system. The energy did not come from the ³He itself, which merely powered the Casimir generators and capacitors, drawing from the vacuum energy of the universe to warp four-space.

Tali's absconded God had not so far expressed a disapproving response to the bug report.

 _This sword has two edges_

The humans had done something else of interest. Original Reaper-pattern FTL designs had embedded safeties deep in their workings to prevent:

(a) accidental collisions, and

(b) the use of FTL kamikaze ships.

Rather than remove the FTL safeties – still an ongoing research project at the Crucible – the humans had subverted them. Instead of refusing to fire if it would result in a collision, the safety would _only_ fire if it would result in a collision. Suicide-ships were still a waste, but FTL torpedos were suddenly practicable. The logic inversion was a bit precarious, and the VIs had to be perilously close to AIs, to choose a Reaper from the available collisions. But they did consistently work, now.

Only Riley of those on board had ever fired one of these things in anger, though. Too secret for target practice till on the way. Garrus shivered in happiness thinking about what his new, big, six-shooter might do to some target of opportunity, but Riley was concerned about the longer-term implications:

" _Sir. What exactly is there to stop someone firing these things at a settled planet?"_

Ah. At one level this was one reason for the Council ban on fiddling with the supposedly Prothean-derived safeties on FTL guidance tech, but:

" _For developed planets, Riley, it's pointless…"_ Humans of course hadn't had centuries to think about this.

 _Peacemaker_ would be engaging the enemy typically at a hundred and fifty million kilometres. Trajectory time would be about thirty seconds. Garrus didn't know what would happen when a Reaper collided with a shuttle-sized mass dewarping at fifteen light years per day before the Alcubierre energy could be reverse-Casimir dumped into the vacuum energy field. But that first Reaper target could not know either, and never would. There could be no light-speed limited sensor warning. Planets? A different story.

" _Consider, we will be firing at mobile targets whose position is not known in advance. But remember, installations like the Citadel have thrusters. If its defensive perimeter detects a warp channel precursor in time, it can dodge…"_

FTL impact energy tended to be dissipated under planetary crust. Cities were still vulnerable, as the recent suicide collision by Taetrus rebels had shown. But:

"Defences exist for such massive or nearly static installations like planets."

In essence, one could put debris in the path of the missile:

" _A planet's position is known – but that also means defences can be localized. Big installations and home systems have a defensive spherical perimeter which detects warp channel signatures several minutes and in some cases, hours out, then relays info by QEC. If a warp trace intersects, defensive missiles are launched to inject blocking debris along the track. Incoming projectiles deviate or self-destruct. A big bubble of dust and gas is enough."_

She wasn't too happy. Riley didn't think Earth had such installations any more.

" _Even the Citadel has a traffic control nexus whose business is to detect incoming warp traffic. You want to know about Earth's defensive stations? Do you need to know? Ask Hackett. But those things are black and stealthed for a reason."_

Riley got the message. Some questions are better not asked, let alone answered.

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #31, "Tales of the South Pacific_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Tuesday, July 21, 2015 -8/8-


	13. Tales of the South Pacific

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 31 **Tales of the South Pacific**

* * *

 _D_ _awn_

Michel was pinching the bridge of her nose, just between the eyes. She must be very tired. It was past breakfast time. But they'd finally finished.

" _At least we've got the last of the manual down now."_

Miranda was beginning to feel the strain herself. "As much of it as I can remember, anyway. If I were there _all the time_ …"

 _"Wishing for fairy dust._ Stop _that_ _."_

"… I could remember more, as circumstances arise."

" _We're linked through the secondary QEC in Overlord, Miranda, that will have to do for now."_

Chloe had not been obstructive, exactly, but Miranda had the very strong impression that her instructions were definite; a certain Miranda Lawson was _not_ to take over treatment. She sighed, again.

" _Cease and desist_ _, you species of hypocrite, you can't have your ship and be here at the same time."_

Which was, unfortunately, quite true. And she would _not_ give up _Overlord_.

" _All right. Well, we've gone as far as we can with the musculature and skin. The bones are the major problem and they're knitting, now, if slowly. It'll take another month before silane fibres are linked up by the bacterial vectors."_

"Yeah, but in engineering terms our Shepard will have sufficient strength from the natural bone growth for day-to-day operations. The flash clone is only eight, physiologically, but might not be needed anyway."

" _All Shepard's organs are functioning now, even the pancreas, so the clone is superfluous_ –"

"I hope you provoked acephaly, then. I'd have no compunction ditching the surplus CPU but his mum might feed me to the fishes."

Michel nodded. " _I did, but I won't ditch it, we don't know what we might need. And actually_ _next time you're in_ _, let's get other clones started._ You _especially shouldn't die on us before we get it right. But you're right about the strength. We could even organize a little light exercise, to bring back some muscle tone_."

"Then it's time for you to think about withdrawing the coma régime."

This made Chloe very thoughtful. " _Actually, Steven and Hannah are supposed to be coming by conduit relay on the_ Normandy _, visiting this evening. Arriving, first dog watch. Leaving again, end of second dog._ "

"So they can inspect both port and starboard watches?" This news made Miranda sit bolt upright. "They'll be at the airlock just seven hours from now. You have to do it while they're with you. You won't have another opportunity."

" _We don't even know he's still there, inside. Suppose there's no Shepard to wake up?_ "

"Come on, Chloe. Be brave. I'll kick _Overlord_ into warp. Who else should be present?"

 _Summer_

The summons from the meeting with the Council staff had been exquisitely bad timing, but the Admiral herself requested their presence.

 _I embraced the summer dawn_ _._

Tevos simply said "We're doing little good here. Valern will cope. Let's go."

 _Nothing yet moved before the palaces_ _._

They'd met Hackett first, near the still-smoking shores of Auckland, amid a terrible stench of decaying flesh – just one glaring example of the recent devastation. Liara was beginning to feel airsick. Tevos did not look well now, either.

 _The water was dead_ _._

Reaper processing was only set up to liquefy a rather small percentage of the total number of victims. It seemed that to 'archive' a genome and generate material for a human reaper required the deaths of 'only' a few million a week.

 _Fields of shadows haunting the woodland road._

Liara calculated with surprise that each slaughtership, for example, typically converted "only" a little more than four thousand persons per day. _S_ _he,_ though, still lived, feeling a breath of survivor guilt there…

 _I walked on, waking breath living and warm._

Even though the Reapers had several hundred slaughterships, historically four or five thousand killings per day per ship was small potatoes, orders of magnitude smaller than the Soviet _zek_ camps and certain Axis camps around the time of the second Terran war. Many more, however, were made husks.

 _The rocks just watched. Wings fled noiselessly._

Asari spirits lifted after diverting to some out-of-the-way Pacific rendez-vous at some mission station with a reduplicated Polynesian name, to retrieve Chakwas and staff from quarters in an ancient stone warehouse. With her was Chambers! In nurse's uniform, loose white clothes and red cloak, name badge _Hannigan_. Their eyes met.

… _along the path already strewn with fresh pale_ _petals_ _,_

 _one_ _blossom_ _told me her name._

Liara said nothing just then, to Tevos or indeed any passenger. Tevos though emitted a barely suppressed hysterical giggle, "Goddess, this has been appalling, T'soni…"

 _I laughed at the blond waterfall draping sunlit hair through the saplings;_

Hannigan/Chambers was looking as well as might be expected, but subdued. _So_ _,_ _Kelly_ _'s with Chakwas, not Michel_ _. Hm… can I work out in advance what the Admirals have in mind?_

In quiet conversation Kelly confirmed that the largest number of Reaper victims actually fell to the increasing level of kinetic bombardment, not slaughterships or husks ("You've seen only two of the cities in Australasia which suffered kinetic strikes, Auckland and Adelaide.")

 _B_ _y the silverlight mountain peak I knew the goddess._

 _So I lifted her veils, one by one._

What of the civilian population in other regional centers? They'd been wiped out by kinetics too, or melted by slaughterships, after the national armies had quite literally taken to the hills.

 _Down alleyways, waving my arms_

These corpses hadn't been processed, buried or eaten by Cannibals. The Alliance bulldozed them into mounds. They were then pushed into the sea for the sharks. Burials of that many would poison the land.

During the long low ocean traverse, Liara introduced Tevos to Chambers, under her refugee identity, as colleague and liaison.

 _In the open plain, where I made her known to the crowing cock_

Nurse Felicia expressed concern as Tevos used the in-flight nausea bag, dropped to one knee beside her, proffered a moist towel, then water. She asked the Councilor if the parade of horrors had been too much.

Liara watched in fascination as Tevos poured out her frustrations, fears, and regrets to a shapeless but sympathetic junior nurse of no significance to inter-species relations.

"How did Allers put it on the news? The Reapers didn't stop to indoctrinate? You don't realize what that means till you smell it. _What have they done in Thess_ _ia_ _?_ "

"Councilor, you can't punish yourself for not being there, and most of the Reapers were protecting the Citadel, here. You know we are pushing for Thessia, and they are pushing to meet us. Don't despair. It might be only four years now."

Tahiti and surrounding islands were among the few to escape complete depopulation. Small asteroids had caused local tsunamis, but surprisingly few deaths. Bora Bora had been the last stop, picking up Hannah Shepard. Chambers excused herself.

 _I_ _lost her among town domes and belfrys_ _._

Then it was Papeete for assorted staff and the ride to orbit with _Normandy_. By now Tevos was a little less pale. Liara saw no profit in enlightening the councilor as to the nurse's real status, particularly since she wasn't sure about that herself. Casting about for a handle on the situation, she tried to engage Hannah Shepard's attention.

 _A vagabo_ _nd escaping across marble quays, I tracked her down_ _._

Tevos actually paid attention as Hannah struggled to put what they'd witnessed in perspective; _"_ _Councilor, what you've seen so far are the Oceania areas which proportionately lost most of the population - nearly ninety-six percent."_

 _"That's worse than losses on the major land masses!"_

" _Only proportionally. Central and East Asia in particular_ _were overwhelmed,_ _los_ _ing_ two thirds _of the population there - we think. Fewer_ _than Oceania_ _in relative terms, but in absolute terms we count several billion dead. So far."_

 _"_ _How is that militarily possible?_ _"_

Hackett took up the conversation.

" _Simply put, ma'am, the Alliance does not control national armies. Each nation fought according to national doctrine which served in its previous wars. Owing to human-wave tactics being reflected as husks, the Chinese did poorly till the military 'reorganized' the politburo and adopted Fabian tactics."_

" _Fabian?"_

Liara knew this one. _"A term which won't translate well, ma'am. Delaying tactics, basically. Avoiding pitched battle. Abandoning heavy equipment inside centuries-old 'Great Wall' bunkers. Dispersing the armed forces."_

Hannah went on to explain that Africa lost only one third of its people, despite being almost completely devoid of organized military response, because the primal instinct of tribal militias was to split into tiny groups and merge with the general population, attacking only when attacked.

" _The common principle of survival was to make it hard for the Reapers to annihilate large identifiable groups, Councilor. It took some time for Anderson to learn that. The Russians did a little better, because they have faced total national annihilation at least twice before in the last millenium. They had an appreciation of what sacrifices needed to be made for national survival."_

Tevos had a thunderstruck look. Liara was not surprised; this cast the advancement of those like Mikhailovich in a new light. Hackett gave further examples. Even the indoctrinated had been rounded up into penal battalions and made to fight husks. Many chose to be killed by husks. Others turned to face extermination from unindoctrinated troops – with the best weapons – in the rear echelon. A tiny minority faced the husks and prevailed. These were deemed worthy of life, despite indoctrination, and segregated.

" _So slaughterships then weren't the main reason for the devastation?"_

" _No ma'am, except in the early days of Reaper occupation…"_

After the 'Miracle of Palaven,' where slaughterships had been destroyed by volunteers carrying backpack nukes inside, the Reapers had avoided their deployment to nations known to stockpile nuclear warheads. That meant slaughterships were conspicuous by their absence in the old CIS areas, especially Russia, as well as the NAS. In those polities, extermination took the form of kinetic strikes on population centres.

"… _especially before the Citadel arrived."_

Some cities of propaganda significance (notably Moscow, London and New York) had Reaper quasi-governments till the Citadel appeared overhead. Husks and marauders patrolled the streets from slaughterships on the outskirts, the Reapers apparently thinking that the Resistance would be less likely to strike their own cultural centers.

" _The rate of killing was so low that it would have taken over a decade to destroy Earth's population utterly._ _That changed after their Palaven defeats. They stepped up._ _"_

Generally speaking, slaughterships were transferred to third-world or nuclear-free areas with genetically diverse populations… Africa, say, the Mediterranean, or the South Pacific, or Indo-China. Elsewhere, especially after the Citadel arrived, something like four billion had died in kinetic strikes on nearly every megalopolis, the remnants chased to Reaper "administrators" or slaughterships. Another two billion became husks, or fell victims to marauders, brutes, banshees, and cannibals in rural areas.

" _So what's your assessment of recovery, Admiral Shepard?"_

" _Slow even after six months, despite the two hundred million conscripts who emerged from bunkers, limestone caverns, and other refuges."_

Hackett had then remarked that while Earth's industry was still in the very early stages of the Primarch's five-year plan, it did benefit from the inability of Reapers to destroy machine-tool industries and infrastructure bunkered in China, India, the NAS, and centers near Russia.

Liara found this credible. The journey from the asari foothold on Earth to Auckland, for example, had actually been by a primitive, yet brand-new, hydrogen-burning ground-effect craft. The pilot had told her it was manufactured on the outskirts of the ruin that was Samara. _"That was extraordinarily rapid,"_ Tevos noted. The factory still had no roof, said the pilot. Hackett said simply that it had happened before in recent history.

Tevos and Liara had thought to go by shuttle. Capital fleet vessels, a dreadnought, say, were far too large for terrestrial landings. The ME core could be idled to counteract gravity but hogging between supports would impose impossible loads on the stressed-skin monococque hulls, unless the interior were pressurized to several atmospheres– which would never happen absent some emergency. The problem was that all _Everest's_ shuttles were busy shuttling reloads for the spinal gun and some new weapon systems, from Oregon factories and New Mexico proving grounds to orbit.

But the end was in sight. What Hackett had made available was atmosphere craft for all city visits, then the _Normandy_ , which did not cope all that well with the gravity, but could conveniently manage one pickup to orbit.

They met Williams at the airlock, who explained they'd be lifting " _in five"._

"Councilor, you and Doctor T'Soni can bunk in the XO's office – you know where that is, Liara. Doctor Chakwas, welcome back, you and nurse will be in the sick bay as usual, or you can take one of the twenty-four crew bunks."

Liara caught Williams' eye: " _Still a taxi, eh?_ " Williams _winked_. "Admirals, I insist you take the loft – the top cabin. It has ensuite shower and toilet…"

Whoops, Chakwas and Chambers were already vanishing down the accessway. With not-quite-seemly haste, Liara followed towards the elevator.

 _By the road's high peak near the laurel green_

Tevos trailed behind making somewhat querulous complaints about the rush. _"_ _One floor down, Councilor,"_ Liara offered over her shoulder. Only Chakwas, Chambers, and T'Soni made it into the elevator together.

 _I swept her up in her heap of_ _veils_ _…_

Under Chakwas' slightly disapproving gaze, Liara caught Kelly by the shoulders and kissed her cheek. She received a sunny grin in response. Kelly hugged her, and she hugged right back, feeling softness under the cloak and clothes.

… _and felt a little the immensity of her body…_

"You naughty thing, what have you done to yourself? You've grown _fat_. _"_ Chakwas cracked up, covering her mouth.

… _the dawn and her child fell to the foot of the forest_ _…_

The elevator door opened up, and the three of them stepped out. In a little while Liara would have to sort out comms, show Tevos how to rig bunks for herself and her Personal Assistant…

"She's not _fat_ exactly, Liara. See us when you're settled. Hannah says it's time you understood a few things."

 _On awakening, there shone the noonday sun._

* * *

\- _Next chapter will be #32, "Day Zero_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Tuesday, July 21, 2015


	14. Day Zero

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 32 **Day Zero**

* * *

 _Trip trap, on my bridge_

 _Normandy_ exited the Earth-transit wormhole at the Pluto end, a lot more sedately than it had entered. Ashley walked up from the CIC to the cockpit…

"Okay. What just happened?"

…slowly, deliberately, and not at all losing her cool, she told herself. By the time she tapped Moreau's shoulder, it was actually true, and she was composed.

Whatever the drama had been, they'd just entered normal space through the L-2 relay near Pluto, and the expected view of a dim planet was exactly that displayed. Next stop was the S-1 relay at Pluto's pole.

"Ah well, LC, it was just Cortez screaming like a girl –"

"– _I'm_ a girl and _I_ don't scream like that. I scream differently. Cortez, you OK?"

The co-pilot examined his hands' grip on the (locked) airfoil yoke. His knuckles were white.

"Yes ma'am. Would you really like to know what happened, commander?" Carefully, Cortez willed his hands to release the yoke. Then he clasped his fingers together.

"Should I ever _not_ want to know, I will say so. In your own time, Cortez. Leave out the drama, if possible."

S-1, the entry to Arcturus, was also in a sense relay zero of the N chain building towards the semi-mythical Reaper 'dark space'. S-1 was _not_ in geosynchronous orbit around Pluto. It was on a crystalline column embedded in Pluto's surface, at the north rotational pole, so they were heading for a grazing rendezvous with the surface. So far, so nominal. There was a little time.

"Basically, I thought Joker had lost his mind and was driving us into the moon. I believe he had Bitwise taking pictures, ma'am. Perhaps you should roll 'em."

 _Bitwise_ was the name coined for the souped-up VI that had (not) taken EDI's place; it was by common consent a plodding entity dealing with issues one after the other, and only a little bit wise. If Joker had Bitwise recording video of this… event, whatever he'd done was premeditated.

"In a minute. First, Moreau, is there going to be any repetition of that… disturbance on the next jump? Is S-1 where it should be?"

Like the old Charon Relay, indeed like _all_ reaper-based mass relays, S-1's mount was in a predictable position. Endpoint predictability was important for a point-to-point link. ( _All_ mass relays are point-to-point, though some change the point they link to).

"Honest, commander, no problem, I just wanted to prove a fast transit was possible. Can you believe I cut eight minutes off the free-space time from Earth orbit to L-1?"

"I do believe it, Joker. I _don't_ think it was worth that noise."

Moreau had become expert in minimizing "drift" for the old relay exit points. Stochastic drift could be tens to thousands of kilometres, depending on transport range (not normally a variable) and mass (usually variable) through the wormhole throat.

Drift was quite bad enough without adding rapid short-radius orbital motion to the calculations. So, a system's old-style mass relay typically stood at least 30AU from the system primary. That is, it was a _long_ way out from the star. The newer small-scale conduit relays… didn't have to be.

"Gah, _such_ a downer. Anyway, it's programmed into Bitwise now, even Cortez could do it just by calling up the follow-me routine."

Moreau had prided himself on being consistently able to drop a two-thousand kilometre drift to fifteen hundred. But the new relays made that achievement pointless. Evidently he was trying to establish new indicia of unique competence. _Bloody_ _testosterone._

" _I_ see. Moreau, you are relieved, come with me." Joker went white. Let him sweat.

"Cortez, take us through S-1. Copeland, take the co-pilot's seat, it's time your lessons got past simulators." Ashley pivoted on her heel and strode toward the elevator, not looking to see how badly Moreau was limping behind her, and pondered the problem.

For any two relay endpoints to form a wormhole of the proper capacity they had to use instantaneous communication, which in practice meant an entangled QEC pair. No-one had ever been allowed to fiddle with old-style reaper relay QEC communicators. That was forbidden in the same way that studying keepers had been forbidden… a mysterious rule of great antiquity which might almost have been designed to keep the zoo animals in their cages.

Fiddling had happened anyway, though, by rogue salarians and quarians. Now that the rules were history, they had published some disturbing details concerning reaper relay QEC pairs. They were almost perversely designed to be inaccurate. So the far end of a Reaper wormhole could easily drift a few thousand kilometres from the nominal position, which effectively prevented a relay blockade.

Thus, fiddling could engender new understanding. Ashley Williams wanted no part of fiddling of any kind, though, when she was carrying two Admirals and a Councilor. Time Moreau learned that. She turned and waited for Joker to catch up.

"Elevator to Captain's loft, please. Bitwise, are Hackett and Shepard ready to receive the flight briefing?"

" _Yes, Commander, Admiral Shepard has signalled readiness."_

Ashley had heard Moreau say that new style prothean-tech conduit relays were "cheating". Their QEC relays were certainly as accurate as turian/human engineering could make them.

Drift two-sigma uncertainty at extreme range, six hundred light years for frigate transport, was only _tw_ _elve_ _metres_ – approximately the resolution of pulsar positioning systems.

Any idiot straight out of flight school could look good… except that the Admiralty _insisted_ on mounting them just a few tens of metres, if that, above a planetary or asteroidal surface.

That made the entry point, um, challenging to hit, at speed. So the rule was, and it was very sensible, _not_ to hit the entry point at speed. Just gently cruise on up, on mass effect fields.

Joker finally got in the elevator as the doors closed, looking very glum.

"Moreau. You have twenty seconds. Speak." _Let's see the_ _lunatic_ _get out of this_.

Joker was prepared. "Ma'am, the exit point of a relay can itself be a weapon for a frigate moving fast enough. If a relay endpoint can be moved in a fraction of a second out of clear space, to a hundred metres from a planetary surface… anyone chasing a fleet frigate could be creamed by switching them to kiss the planet's surface at, say, forty kilometres a second."

"You've been speaking to Tali, Moreau. For strategic reasons conduit relay capabilities are _not_ widely advertised."

"You sure about that, commander? Right now on the extranet there's a few videos of approaches to the L-1 conduit relay on the lunar surface which show a frigate getting to the new Charon relays, like S-1, in a _big_ hurry."

The elevator doors opened. Ashley stepped into the loft lobby, thinking hard.

"All righty, you live another few seconds." The loft door opened and Hackett motioned them in. "Admiral, I've brought Lieutenant Moreau to see you, for disciplinary purposes. First, however, I believe he has something to say about military uses of the local relay network."

In the next few minutes, Joker tried to explain how tactics of rapid transit were becoming a popular exercise among shuttle and frigate pilots. He called up some extranet videos to the display above the private terminals; they made Hannah Shepard gasp, and Ashley was impressed despite herself.

Moreau did not know which _Normandy_ -class frigate was responsible, but suspected the most popular vid to be one produced by that Cat6 youth showboating in _Overlord_. It didn't show a standard 500kph approach, oh no.

On screen the vid started with the scariest bit of mountains and canyon walls flashing by since Gene Cernan took the primitive Apollo 10 LEM to an orbit just fourteen kilometres above the nominal surface, at six thousand kilometres an hour; and it got worse from there. The vid ended in what looked to be a certain crash on a mountain peak… which was obviated only by entering the wormhole two frames before _splat_.

"All right, Joker. There is an issue with operational security and deviations from flight plans. That however does not excuse your behavior, trying such approaches with VIPs on board. More immediately, you did _not_ clear the deviation from plan with _me_."

"Ma'am."

"Do you wish to contest this before a court martial or captain's mast, or will you accept administrative action?"

" _Nolo contendere_ , ma'am."

Suddenly, Ashley was at a loss for what to do. Her immediate reaction had been that withdrawal from flight duties was appropriate. But it flashed before her that Shepard had never had this problem with Joker. She sat back. There was no immediate reaction from the two admirals, who both had solemn faces on.

"So, Joker, _now_ you choose to be a thoughtless idiot. Would you have done this when John Shepard was around?"

Moreau was looking a little green around the gills, as well he might, with Hannah Shepard hanging on every word.

"Or is it just me? You think you can get away with such behaviour because I'm a woman?"

"No, commander. It wasn't really Commander Shepard, and it's not really you. I just… I didn't think it was that big a deal."

Silence ruled. Of course it was that big a deal. Was that the best he could do?

"I mean, I _knew_ I could fly the fast plan."

More silence. Ashley rubbed her forehead. She didn't seem to have a lot of options, here. Joker began looking desperate.

"Commander, I'm sorry. I know I should have asked, and if I'd thought about it I'd not have pulled the stunt while you had the Admirals on board."

Hackett spoke for the first time.

"Never mind _us_ , son. Councilor Tevos is aboard. If you are lucky, she wasn't in the lounge, looking out the window."

Joker looked completely thunderstruck.

"So, you didn't know. Okay. Do you think that matters?"

"No ma'am."

"Quite right. Tell me why not."

"Because… I'm not the officer of the day? I can't possibly know from port to port who I'm carrying?"

"Partial answer, maggot. And?"

"So I can't know when a plan deviation might be in order. And… even if I did… it wouldn't matter… because…"

"You only have the authority to change the flight plan _in consultation when necessary_ with the Captain or XO. And when is such consultation expected?"

"When there's an non-standard maneuver, or an element of risk, ma'am."

"Well done. Was this maneuver non-standard?"

"Yes, commander."

"Was there an element of risk?"

"Yes, commander."

Ashley took in the reactions of Steven Hackett and Hannah Shepard. A spark of understanding passed between them.

"Thank you, lieutenant, you are dismissed, and on administrative leave till ultimate disposition. Inform the OOD and return to your quarters."

"Ma'am." Joker got up, painfully, saluted, painfully, and left. Ashley exhaled.

"Admiral Hackett. Admiral Shepard. I hope you understand why I felt I had to do that before your eyes."

Both nodded. "Commander," said Hackett, "I see no flaw in your resolution of this so far. Before we address the enlightening videos from the Lieutenant, may I ask, is this a result of boredom?"

Ashley thought about this, and reluctantly nodded. "It may well be, sir. He has been complaining about driving a taxi."

Hannah nodded. "Ah. But that is an explanation, not an excuse. We can't have him going on like this."

"The boredom's probably my fault, ma'am–"

"Call me Hannah now, please. It's _not_ your fault. John was constantly in danger or some kind of peril. There is a kind of man who needs that, every so often. I wouldn't have thought it of Joker, but I feel that's what we have here."

"Yes," agreed Hackett. "The steam is merely being let off in an unusual direction."

"So what can we do?"

"If we stop him flying, he will seek a discharge."

"That might be preferable to killing everyone aboard."

"But we, the Navy, would lose a truly superlative pilot."

"Cortez is as good, in his own way. But Jeff is sometimes… inspired."

There was a silence while they looked at this from every angle. Hannah broke it.

"Commander, can I suggest a dual resolution."

"Please do!"

"First, follow your first instinct. Mr Moreau is to be withdrawn from flying duties on the _Normandy_."

Ashley sighed. "Yes, ma'am. I don't suppose we can do any less."

"Second, I'd like him seconded to the Nest task force, and especially the _Orizaba_. After he's had a couple of days to think about his actions."

"Can do. Won't he be bored?"

"I think not. I'm going to have him piloting the _Kilimanjaro_ a little. We've been having trouble with precise positioning of conduit relays. A dreadnought's a huge beast to control within centimetres."

"Ah. He actually might enjoy that. Except it involves going slow."

"But slow _with precision_."

"Yes, that might make a difference. Also, I wonder if Mikhailovich will explode."

"That's why I want him on the _Orizaba_. Coats is in command over there. It will also reduce the risk of Moreau forgetting himself. Commander Williams, I don't wish to demean your command skills in any way, but there is one thing about men like James Coats and John Shepard –"

Ashley raised a hand: "Their men, if not the women, get a subconscious prickling in their gut, where the knife would come in?"

"That's a vivid description, Ashley. What inspired it?"

"From whispers about Shepard in action, Hannah. Against a man called Leng."

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #33, "First Dog Watch_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Tuesday, July 21, 2015 -6/6-


	15. First Dog Watch

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 33 **First Dog Watch**

* * *

 _Warped Woof_

While prepared to grant the slight extra difficulty an old man might experience with weaving a frigate through a two thousand square metre window in space, Yoof wasn't too impressed by Joker's bravura transit in _Normandy_ from L-1 to L-2.

"I bet I can catch him, old man." Zabaleta was looming over his shoulder.

He'd done something like it twice before, first in Zabaleta's shuttle, to get his eye in, then during _Overlord_ _'s_ maiden flight from the Turian superdock to the _Orizaba_ , just after N-3 was mounted. He'd taken pictures, that time.

Zabaleta seemed fairly tolerant. There was right stuff cred to be had in recording some outlandish, if not quite life-threatening, derring-do. In fact, Yoof'd been cashiered from the Navy precisely because…

"… The base purser's daughter plated the inside of your Trident's cockpit with her lunch, last time you were trying to catch up with your brainless buddies, Yoof. Or had you forgotten? I haven't."

Well actually that hadn't been why Yoof had been in such trouble. Stunts like that had been the stock in trade of shiny new fighter pilots for centuries. It was more that in the course of the inquiry it had been discovered that he'd plated the inside of the purser's daughter. Which actually made his mouth go dry for a minute. Not from the memory of that last memorable dressing-down. More from the memory of that last memorable undressing. In brief, or in her briefs, Yoof had still wanted her, and she'd still wanted him…

… and last he heard she was in New York when the Reapers hit. If that was what "growing up" felt like, you could shove it.

"Come on, man, for the honor of the boat. If I do this I've got to get moving in the next… twenty-two seconds."

Zabaleta caught Toombs' eye. "Where is she?"

"With Jack and Matthews, closing up the cold-bunking volume."

This was accommodation for cold sleep in a room corresponding to where the _Normandy_ 's AI was lodged. Just temporary, because Lawson righteously affirmed that _one day_ there really _would_ be an honest-to-God AI in that space, if she had to rebuild EDI herself. Essentially, twenty tubes for bodies and cryo.

An equivalent volume was set on the other side of the ship, truncating the XO's space, currently occupied by Jack and the biotics. In coldsleep rooms there were no windows. Lawson might never know.

"We can't let bloody Williams diss us like that."

Toombs got props for some living arrangements. The XO office had been their personal space. Before saying anything to Miranda, Toombs had quietly given his up, to bunk down in gunnery control with the big Thanix cannon ( _"I never felt comfortable there, anyway,_ _Zeb,_ _it's t_ _oo grand"_ ).

Zabaleta had by then completed the first stages of paramedic training, so he'd vacated as well, and now had the closest bunk to the med bay, with the Cerberus kids. Not that they were really kids, except Goldstein, still nineteen. But they were older than Jack's biotic babies. Hadley was twenty-four.

Well then. The kids were buckling in anyway, in anticipation of transit in about ten minutes. They'd just have to buckle a bit faster.

"You're right. This counts as war," Toombs agreed, and reached for ship intercom. _"Transit stations. I say again, transit stations._ Sound for crash webbing, kid."

Yoof chortled. They were starting a little behind, and didn't have no fancy-dancy VI to help, just the basic unit that came with all the turian-built ships, but he'd had some time to work on this and it would do. _"Cameras forward, minus five."_ Wide-angle macro chosen. " _Routine Fly-the-wire-L-one, coming up on my mark."_ Telling the VI to do the polished transit, safeties on.

Toombs finished buckling himself into the co-pilot's seat, Zabaleta had vanished towards the elevator. _"Five. Four. Three. Two. One. MARK_."

The VI engaged. _Overlord_ swooped.

" _Transit_ _minus sixty seconds."_

 _Overlord_ dipped again, towards _Mare Crisium_ and the lights of Luna City. Some sentinel was surely going to file another complaint about a seriously incorrect overflight. Yoof didn't care, being more concerned with the time to meet. He'd need eighty-five percent thrusters, which was going to piss off the on-duty engineer, but Hawthorne would understand once he explained.

" _Transit minus_ _forty_ _seconds."_

With the VI flying by wire for now, Yoof monitored console crash webbing flickers. The last two went green; that was the last safety abort cleared. He became intensely focused on optimizing the level approach on relay L-1, topping the rim of a crater (Peirce-A) at a little over 200 metres.

" _Transit minus_ _twenty_ _seconds."_

If he was going to gain on _Normandy_ , he'd have to take the wormhole first time, and L-1 _wasn't responding_. That must mean the wormhole generator hadn't reset after _Normandy_. A frigate was a big lump for even the latest-generation conduit relays. Rough mental calculation said it should be reset by now; if he didn't see L-1's _Ready_ signature soon he'd have to abort – no, there it was, and the VI had acquired transit lock.

" _Transit minus_ _ten_ _seconds._ _Commit."_

And then the bloody _phone_ went! _"_ _What the hell are you playing at, Yoof!"_

 _The inmates and the asylum_

Jana was ambling slowly to her duty cell in the recovery unit when the first ship zipped overhead, so fast no normal person could have identified it, but the Cerberus frame grabber - still in place - picked up a three-quarter view, and her greybox picked it out as _Frigate/Cerberus/Normandy/Shepard._

The inaccuracies were a plaintive commentary on her situation. She updated it to _Frigate/Alliance/Normandy/?_ and began wending her way to work again till her subconscious, not an implant, pinged her attention; that thing was going impossibly fast. What sort of emergency was there?

She was still thinking about it when the second ship went overhead. The frame grabber got that too, and the greybox picked it again as _Frigate/Alliance/Normandy/_? _No, never!_ Her mind had been grossly dicked over. Perhaps not so much she couldn't recall the indoctrination procedures for the Alliance doctors; that saved her life.

On the other hand, the grabber image on comparison showed subtle differences, like the lack of **SR2** pennant and a stylized **AD** in its place. Jana cautiously created a new manual entry, _Frigate/_ _AD_ _/?/?_.

She'd managed to avoid the suicide chip but in those last days she'd watched those around the Illusive Man being seized by the white guard, planted face down on their desks, then injected at the base of the skull before being carted off to Induction. In those last few seconds before _her_ arms were grabbed and _she_ bent over from a shove between the shoulder blades, she screamed at him to remember his pledge, but he, Harper, what he had become, _it_ , had just smiled at her.

Another vanishingly short metallic flash. _Frigate/Turian/?/?_ Why did she care at all, any more? Still functional, but sick at heart, Jana could no longer be sure of her mental integrity. So she stood dolorously in the middle of Recovery Road, and stared at the sky.

 _Beyond the Thunderdome_

The traffic controller in Luna City swore violently as the _third_ bloody frigate shot over the dome at two hundred metres, ticking off five thousand klicks. Noiselessly, of course. With at least thirty metres clearance. But dammit, the bloody radar controller VI crashed _again_! Just clicked into safe mode! And, one day there would be an _antenna._ Or a bigger dome, fer chrissake, they'd only just joined all the temporary fields into a single paraboloid shell again and the magnalloy struts were a bitch to fabricate. Whatever, this was dangerous crap, it was happening within the city control corridor, and _someone_ would _pay_.

" _What's holding up_ _those bloody transponder IDs, dammit!"_

" _I got 'em,_ _Petrovsky_ _."_

" _Well_ _then, who_ were _these idiots_ _?_

" _That last one was_ Peacemaker _, boss. Turian registry. Diplomatic pouch, we can file a complaint but it'll go nowhere."_

" _Crap. Crappity crapdoodle. What about the one before?"_

"Overlord _, boss."_

" _File a DOT complaint."_

" _Um… you might want to reconsider that, boss."_

" _What!? Why?"_

" _Registry ID's owner and captain as Miranda Lawson, first officer is Christopher Toombs. Lawson's the woman who inherited a fifty billion credit fortune, remember? She's got high-up friends on the Council. And I've heard of Toombs."_

" _Her enforcer. Yeah. 'He's got thresher maw blood in his veins,' what crap, but I don't want to file a writ against someone who can hire an army of asari lawyers. What about the first one? Who the hell's on_ that? _"_

" _Erm… you're not going to like this either, boss… it's_ Normandy _, the captain's a spectre, the passenger manifest shows ranking flag officers, and uh, there's a supercargo…"_

 _Dog_ _day_ _afternoon_

" _Right_ , who do I shoot first?"

"Don't shoot them, Miranda, we're in a pressurized hull. Knife them, or space them."

Yoof had thought his mouth was dry before. Right now he would have preferred to be back on Earth, in the clink, _anywhere_ but in the pilot's seat, especially since the VI was handling the transfer orbit from L-2 to S-1. The way that bald woman said the word _knife_ gave Yoof a prickly feeling in his gizzard.

"Uh, Captain, we've only got another minute and a half before transit through S-1."

" _Dammit,_ Yoof, I thought you'd learned your lesson in that bloody jail cell. What speed?"

"Real Slow this time, Captain, we come out at S-2 and then we've got to pootle half-way around a five-kilometre asteroid to engage N-1…"

He'd _seen_ Lawson use a knife, and worse, an omni-blade, when they were ambushed in Shanghai. Jack cast a biotic shield and said " _After you, ma'am._ " Yoof didn't _think_ Lawson had used biotics, or drawn her gun, but no ordinary human moves that fast. She took a wavy-edge dagger off the first mugger and used it on his pals, excepting one; then she asked the survivor, once, who the boss was. In Hakka! He'd spat at her. Lawson and Jack took him into a dark alley for 'tickling'. There hadn't been any laughter, or indeed any audible conversation; but at the alley entrance a yellow flickery hard-light beat could be seen for a few seconds.

The bosses had returned briefly, then bundled them (but not Zabaleta and Toombs) into a shuttle. The pilot was some evilly scarred turian, who'd stayed. Yoof had to fly the shuttle back. Then he'd picked Lawson, Jack, and the turian up from the _Bund_ six hours later. There was no conversation on the way back.

Zabaleta and Toombs arrived back the following day and would not discuss the event. Over four more days in Shanghai, not _once_ did they have _any more trouble_ _at all_.

Jack kept the mugger's wavy knife on her cabin wall now. In a wooden box. It looked a little different. It was cleaner. There was a flickery glint to the edge. There was a plaque, " _In case of emergency, break glass._ " Yoof very much did not want to be an emergency.

Toombs had seen Lawson a killing mood before, but he couldn't keep his trap shut this time, because after all he was the XO and he _had_ given permission…

"… so _what_ in _God's_ name inspired you to chase _Normandy!"_

"It was for the honor of the boat. Of the team. Leave him alone, Lawson, I told him he could, and we passed _Normandy_ half a minute ago. We waggled the airfoils but it's like they lost interest, they're still trailing, going slow too."

Now _Toombs_ was the focus of two outraged pairs of eyes, but he'd faced a thresher maw. Any day was a bad day to die. It had to happen one day.

"Toombs, you realize Rodriguez didn't get her crash webbing on in time?"

Yoof's brow furrowed. "That can't be right, ma'am, I saw the green telltale."

Jack _purr_ _ed_ at him, "She's a _klutz_ , sometimes. We're _working_ on that. She didn't _lock_ it properly."

Zabaleta indulged his suicide bump. "Even so, Jack, the board was green and transit made no excessive G-force."

"No, but there _might_ have been!"

At that exact moment, a blue flash zipped past the shutters, about a hundred metres off, and a refined voice crackled over TBS: " _So long, sucker_ _rrrrs,_ _see you at S-2_ _."_

The effect on Miranda was magical. " _Yoof_ , OUT of that seat, NOW."

 _Overdog_

Tali was in the maintenance shed when _Peacemaker_ came through S-2.

" _Keelah!_ What's the Transponder ID on that thing?"

" _Ne_ _w_ _T_ _ransit/_ _Peacemaker/Bellerophon, pilot._ "

"I don't _believe_ it. Give me that comm. _Relay S-2 shed to_ Peacemaker _, Garrus, what the hell do you think you_ _'_ _r_ _e_ up _to?_ "

" _Later, Tali, tell me fast, what's the co-ordinates for the N-1 relay?"_

"It's on the other side of the asteroid from the S-2 relay you just crossed, lunatic!"

" _Spirits! Bellerophon, do a one-eighty, NOW, don't argue. Ready FTL, minimum jump, thirty thousand klicks…"_

At this point Tali's attention was caught by the relay VI flicking up another transit acceptance: _Ne_ _w_ _T_ _ransit/_ _Overlord/Lawson, pilot_ _._ What the hell? Lawson! _? You bosh'tet!_

"GARRUS! There's another frigate coming through in… forty-two seconds, one second after predicted relay reset. Clear the exit field!"

" _Bugger! How long will it take to circumnavigate the asteroid?"_

"Typically twenty minutes on angled thrusters. Garrus, you owe me an explanation–"

" _Later babe, duty calls. FTL engage!"_ And the link was cut. _Peacemaker_ reverse-jumped thirty thousand kilometres. It would take at least quarter of an hour in balls-out safeties-off mode getting back into position for N-1. Meanwhile, Tali had a few seconds to collect her thoughts. Clearly, Garrus was in some kind of trouble. Or Miranda. Or both. Confound it, her BFF didn't give a damn about regulations any more.

Tali picked up the comm and prepared to give the incoming vessel a piece of her mind. But the next vessel that came through _instantly_ went to full angled thruster power, and began screaming around the asteroid circumference an order of magnitude faster than usual. There was a rainbow warping of the droplet cloud field. It was insane, marvellous, staggeringly beautiful. That craft was manipulating the mass effect fields _and_ thrusters simultaneously.

Obviously, Miranda wasn't too fussy about the rules either.

For a short time, Tali forgot about tearing a strip off and just watched the video feeds. Was Lawson really piloting that thing? This was genius. Even a computer couldn't combine the mass effect core and the thrusters like this. Well, it could, but you'd have to rewrite half the industry-standard safety rules.

Seven minutes later, the relay VI blinked at her again, showing " _Ne_ _w_ _T_ _ransit/_ _Normandy_ _/_ _Cortez, pilot_ _"._ "Garrus, abort! The relay's in use again!"

" _Oh, nooooo!"_ Then she heard her now not-so-favourite turian utter some quite remarkable profanities. Time to apply a little needle.

"Really, Garrus, it's perfectly safe to back off and start again."

The relay VI pinged at her. _Overlord_ had just entered the N-1 relay.

 _Dogged persistence_

Cortez calmly ran a minimum-energy thruster orbit of the S-2 moonlet as _Normandy_ punctually exited the relay. All passengers were still safely webbed down except two of the important ones. Oh, the captain too.

"Dammit, Cortez, can't you make this thing go any faster?"

"Why, yes, I most certainly can, Commander, but for some reason there are regulations against the necessary measures."

" _Cortez."_

"I believe there's a man in his bunk in the crew quarters who might do your bidding, ma'am."

Ashley turned and looked at the Admirals. They had the most amazing poker faces, except Hannah's face was quivering, she'd burst out laughing soon. No help there. Right. Extreme measures appear to be called for.

"Yeoman! Go unbuckle the Councilor and let her know she's _invited_ to a special display, military power passage of the Nest chain. Copeland! Go dig Joker out of his bunk."

"But ma'am, he's pretty low right now. He's just curled up in a ball."

"Tell him the Alliance expects every man to do his duty."

 _First D_ _og_

 _Captain_ _Coats_ _._ _Three frigates just transited N-5._ _Hail_ _s_ _from_ Normandy _,_ Overlord _,_ Peacemaker _,_ _in that order,_ _flag on_ Normandy _. Flag Officers requesting permission to board._

 _Permission granted._ Normandy _to dock one._ _Notify Lawson and Vakarian of_ _next vacant_ _docking stations._

Hackett and Shepard trailed behind the Councilor on the way to their quarters, as Tevos described to her enthralled PA the marvelous sensations of tunnel vision through a ring ice field, and passing through the upper clouds of a superjovian's moon, heading at flank speed for a pinnacle topped by a relay above those clouds.

"I don't know, Hannah, did we make a mistake giving them their own ships?"

"Steven, it's quite obviously a master-stroke. You are such a silly man sometimes."

* * *

– _Next chapter will be #34, "Staring out from the abyss_ _…"_ _–_

* * *

Tuesday, July 21, 2015


	16. Staring out from the abyss

Grave to cradle, Arc 3 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 34 **Staring out from the abyss**

* * *

 _Speak,_ _Mnemosyne_

 _Begin._

The first awareness was not of dark. The first impression was not vision.

 _Thiopental withdrawn_

Before the dark had been a void.

 _Can we have_ _more ligh_ _t_

From the void, rhythm

 _Brain stem activity on O-fifteen PET_

Senses pieced themselves together from a dreamless, timeless state.

 _Low-dose midozalam_ _o_ _ff_ _IV please_

Touch came

 _Softly, now, Kelly_

Many touches

 _Snip, don't pull_

After touch came cold

 _We're up to thirty-five, Karin, slow down_

After cold came smell

 _Alcohol swab, please_

Reaction, not reflection, as yet no thought was in being

 _Getting EEG here, burst suppression dwindling, deltas_

Mind began, a small, scuttling focus creeping between grays

 _Too fast, that's the last line, keep it there for five minutes_

There could be neither dark nor light where there was neither sight, nor the memory of sight, nor any word for sight, nor any words at all

 _L_ _et the blood chemistry settle,_ _Michel_

Of a sudden the inchoate roar of raw _HEARING!_ A black sun in a dusty disk.

 _Theta spiking! Ready. Propofol IV, getting REM here, incipient seizures, tremor_

The singing left the ears, the swarming left the eyes, a self without identity emerged from the guttering dark, a kaleidoscope of misty fractal trees formed in the mind's eye.

 _Slow down. Wait for REM to go away._

Mind within mind. The pale fire had gone. Following the boy now, the glassy ghost, on the valley path, opening to the grey forest, the light grew, a boy on a seat. The ghost came to the boy, turned in the new day, sat in the boy and the boy's eyes opened. **I'm still here, Shepard.** The red light grew but the world was _WHITE._

"That's it, REM's over."

Where were the docks? There was someone he had to see. He mumbled. Lips numb.

"Shepard, I'm here. We're here."

That voice. He tried to open his eyes, just had a grey glimmer, the lids were sticking. A warm cloth passed over, licked the mucus from the corners, now there were green eyes looking back.

" _Kelly?"_ He tried to raise his left hand, someone took it. Blue eyes, tears? _"Miranda?"_

"We're here." Oh. _Oh._ He couldn't see her, but –

" _Mom?"_

* * *

\- _End (of Grave to cradle)_ -

* * *

This world begins again at Arc 4: _"Road to nowhere"_ \- by the same author (under s/11397021/1/Road-to-nowhere)

Thursday, July 23, 2015


End file.
